The Sabrina Zohar Show - 83: How To Rewire Your Brain With Nicole Neuroscience

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

From across the world, Nicole Vignola (aka Nicole Neuroscience), neuroscientist, organizational consultant, and author, is in the studio to talk with Sabrina about the impact of neuroplasticity on daily life, particularly in the context of dating and relationships. Neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to form new connections, is reinforced by consistency and can help change unproductive patterns learned in childhood. For instance, frequent texting early in a relationship can create anxiety and a dopamine-driven expectation that meeting in person often fails to meet. This mismatch occurs because the brain anticipates rewards from predictable behaviors like texting, but prefers the unpredictability that real-life interactions offer. Nicole emphasizes that changing these patterns involves understanding and leveraging the brain’s mechanisms, such as using visualization and breathing exercises to manage stress and avoid catastrophizing. By rewiring our brains to handle emotions better, we can build resilience and improve our relationships. Compassion for oneself during this process is crucial, as positive behavioral changes foster better outcomes. Get Nicole's book Rewire HERE! Join the Make It Make Sense: Getting Through a Breakup course HERE! Want to work with Sabrina? HERE! Stuck After the Podcast? Master Implementation in 8 Weeks with Sabrina's Foundation Course Get Ad-free episodes and 2 Bonus episodes a month HERE! Dont forget to follow Sabrina and The Sabrina Zohar Show on instagram and Sabrina on Tik tok! Video now available on YOUTUBE!  Disclaimer: The Sabrina Zohar Show, formally known as Do The Work, is not affiliated with A.Z & associates LLC in any capacity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My name is Sabrina Zohar and I am your host. Ah, friends, I can't believe it's the end of June already. That is absolutely bananas to me. For anyone listening, it's June 2024 at any time of your life. But I'm so glad, guys, we get to enter summer together. We get to be together. And we have a very special guest today in studio, which is always so exciting to me. Miss Nicole, she is my favorite neuroscientist that there is.

And I've had such a girl crush on her for a while. So I'm so excited that she's state side and she could come in and hang out with us. And we are talking about actually a lot of things of like how do you actually break patterns? How do you rewire your brain? How do you work through catastrophizing thoughts and spiraling? Like kind of all the things that it's not just about dating when we experience these things, but also in relationships as well. It's super important that we start to kind of prime ourselves because honestly, babes, I'm going to be real with y'all.

I am going to start evolving our content a little and starting to move more into relationships. I think dating, we've been there, we've done that, we've talked about it a lot, and now let's get you guys ready for the relationship that you deserve, and that includes how do we rewire our brain and actually start to create new neural pathways. So today's episode's going to be phenomenal, and I'm super, super excited. So guys, as always a reminder, please, please do not forget to rate and review the show wherever you're listening on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, anywhere YouTube, of course, please don't forget to leave a five-star rating. The course is out. It is going. It is hot. The foundation course is pumping. If you guys need any help, you have an eight-week self-guided course that is

available for a life. You have a community. You have meditations. You have journal prompts. You have a worksheet. You've got videos. There are so much amazing stuff in the course. So please, please join it now if you need more support. And as always, guys, if you ever want to work with me one-on-one, ask a question or need any support, everything will be in the link in show notes. And the last announcement as always is if you guys want to subscribe, you get to add free listening and two bonus episodes a month. Add free listening for all of the episodes from the first all the way to hear and as well as two bonus episodes a month where you guys get to ask me anything and get to request episodes. So guys, anything you guys need will always be in the show notes. And I'm just

so excited for another amazing episode. Thank you guys so so much for supporting. And I am just I'm fucking am. So without further ado, let's get right on into it. Nicole. Dude, I'm so excited. Welcome to Do the Work podcast. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. Yay. You came all the way here from the other side of the world just for me. I was going to say that, but I did. That's it. The only reason was me. I am here. Well, I'm so excited to have you in studio. And I'm so excited because you have a new fucking book that came out. I do. I know. It's so crazy. Like, every time I see it, I'm like, I've read a fucking book. How, okay, we're going to get into it all. But before we even start, can you introduce yourself for the audience who does not know who you are or know. whatever, but firstly again, thank you for having me. I'm super excited. I'm Nicole. I'm neuroscientist and organizational consultant and author of Rewire. I work with individuals and

organizations and I just bring neuroscience to the masses. So I basically studied neuroscience as my undergraduate, realized that there was a gap. We were speaking about this in the car where people don't really know what neuroscience is or how to apply to daily life and I wanted to make it applicable to people. So I did my master's in psychology and wanted to dilute it into organizations essentially. So I started with that and then I built my social media platform and now I'm grateful enough to be able to or lucky enough to be able to communicate it to the wider audiences and everyone that needs it. So that's fucking rad. I mean, neuroscience has become pretty hot recently, right? Like I feel like I'm hearing it. Yeah, probably. I mean, yeah, I got lucky. I mean,

I was in my degree and Hooverman came around. I was like, sick. I can also do that now. Let's make it cool. Because like there's nothing better than when you see a babe that's like smart and also knows what she's talking about. And you're like, fuck, yes. Thank you. That's very kind. It's true because, you know, when I studied neuroscience, when I finished, I literally had an existential crisis. Because I was like, I've just wasted like however much money on a degree that I'm never going to use because I don't want to work in research. I don't want to be in a lab.

And at the time, of course, there were alternative jobs. But I didn't really see them. And then as I started, you know, doing my social media, the sort of platform. started opening up to seeing different opportunities with neuroscience. It wasn't working in a lab. Because I just, I didn't think I would have done well. I mean, I'd love to do research. I want to go back into my PhD.

I started studying a lot later than everybody. I was 27 and everyone was 18 in my course. I was nine years older than everybody. So I went back to school later and I'm now 32. It's my birthday. Two days time. Oh my God. Oh, my God.

I'll always forget. I know. So, you know, I will do my PhD eventually. just for fun, but I don't want to like compromise on quality of life. No, 100%. Yeah. I mean, you're talking about a college dropout here. So to me, I'm like, I totally get that.

But I'm excited. The reason I'm stoked was one, I was reading the book when I was winning when I went away. When I was going away, I can't even speak. When I went away, I read your wire by the pool. I was. I'm so stoked. And I loved it because I like, love, like, whatever, that you take really complex, like, neuroscience with the average layman's person's like, but you make it bites.

size to where I'm like, oh, I get that. Yeah. Which is my goal for today is to be able to, one, convince everyone to get this book. But secondly, to, I really want to help people, whether they're single in a relationship, like, spoiler alert for all of our listeners, we are going to start to evolve more of the content into talking about relationships as well, because I think there's only so much in dating before we're like, okay, well, we did it, right? But I do think there is a lot to say about, like, patterns and understanding the brain.

and I'm also really big nerd and I love to understand like, but what's happening, right? Not like the necessarily why is it happening. Sure, whatever. What is happening. So I kind of just even wanted to start with like understanding because I think a lot of people maybe or maybe not don't understand like neuroplasticity

and the fact that we can change and evolve and grow. And I'd love to hear just a little bit on like how that even fucking works. Yeah. Yes. So I wanted to say like regardless of whether you by the book, of course I want everyone to buy the book, but if you don't, I always get this question. Like, is neuroscience applicable to me? Like, can I read this book? Am I smart enough to read it? And my answer is always like, do you have a brain? If you have a brain, then the book is for you.

And not just the book, like neuroscience is for you because we all have a brain and we all can benefit from knowing why we do the things we do and how we do the things that we do so that we can break those patterns. So, yeah, neuroplasticity is the ability to be able to reorganize and reshape your brain to undo pathways and redo. new ones. So you've got these neurons and then they make connections with other neurons and they basically become reinforced with anything that you have repeated. Now growing up, you will have acquired a set of rules about how the world works by watching your parents interact and them or your peers or whoever was, you know, raising you to tell you how to navigate this world. And you don't

know if that's right or wrong. You're just kind of going by no hope so. You're like, okay, cool. I'm just going to take your word for it. And then you grow up being like, hang on a minute. I have questions. What? I have questions. Can I get a refund? Because you guys are wrong.

And it's very much like, you know, you're the only house on the block type thing where you're like, if I didn't go into other people's homes, how was I going to understand that like, oh, so my parents aren't healthy? Like, oh, okay. Until you're fucking 34 and you start to figure that out. Yeah, like my parents would scream each other all the time. And my mother would yell at everyone on the phone when she was panicked. And that's how I learned to communicate.

Like, you just shout at people. And then you cry about it afterwards. No, I feel really seen right now. Yeah, that's not normal, right? But these are these kind of patterns that we now have created. We've created these sets of rules about how the world works through watching our parents interact. And the question I always poses, is that programming that you have yours? If it isn't or if it isn't serving you, you can change it.

So we now know that we can create new pathways in the brain at any age. So well into old age, we can actually leverage neuroplasticity. So when I was talking about those pathways, they become reinforced. They can also weaken over time through unrepeating different patterns of diverting the usual path. And what tends to happen is that if there's one path that you have always gone down, let's say it's, you know, shouting at people or snapping or being triggered in a situation, until you create a new pathway, that's going to be the automatic pattern. And that's why sometimes taking that pause.

I always talk about the pause when you have, when you come to a crossroads where you could be triggered, you could snap, you could do the thing or you could divert. It's going to be easier to do the snapping because that's what you've always done. And until you have changed that pattern and made a stronger pathway that's diverted from this one, it's going to be difficult. And it just, the prerequisite for neuroplasticity is repetition. So a lot of people get kind of like overwhelmed. by the idea of starting something new, like, oh, I'll never get there, or it's too big, or I don't have enough time, I have to do this for an hour every single day. No, it's like, what in these scenarios with the behavioral change, it's in the moment, but if you want to acquire

a skill, like learning the guitar, people always think, if I don't have an hour to do every day, then it's not worth it. But even just five minutes every single day can still get you much further than if you did nothing, right? And I always say, like, this is kind of going off a bit of a tangent, but if you decide to scroll, instead of play guitar, how good are you going to be at scrolling in five years' time versus how good would you be at playing guitar in five years time if you just stuck to it for five minutes every single day? I mean, ideally you'd do more, but even just five minutes. Oh, 100%. Are you kidding me?

Like most people are really listening are like, I am great at scrolling. I am the queen. I am the FB. And it's like, I know. We all are. And me included, you know, I want people to know this. Like, I'm not a saint here sitting. I be like, I don't have like horrible phone hygiene.

I actually do have pretty good of phone hygiene. But it's work. It is work. Like, I could easily slip back into. like checking my phone first thing when I wake up, checking my phone when I go to bed. And I don't do that. But it wasn't like an overnight thing that I created. It's, I could easily be addicted to my phone.

I have to say, if we're going to talk about the phone real quick, because I do. I want to talk about the anxieties, especially around the dating and the relationships and the fucking texting. So when it, even when it comes to my phone, I actually listen to you. Thank you. And I made myself a new rule at night. I was, because I have not, hello whoop. We both have one on. This is not sponsored by the way, but we love it to be.

Are you listening, who? Exactly. Hello. So I, and I, the only reason I really got this was because I was like, I know I'm not getting my REM sleep. Like, I know I am not getting the sleep that I need. And at first we would like, we tried all different things of like, okay, well, let's just like fall asleep to TV. No, no. I don't think that's going to be a good idea. My stress was still really high. And then I tried, let me do this. Let me do this. Let me do this. The one thing that has consistently helped every time I do it at night is at eight, like I go to bed by nine, no later. She's, she's over 30, right? Like, I'm geriatric at this point. 9.30 for me. Yeah, so it's like, we're in that same world. 9.30 is, but she's in a night out if she's at 9.30. But I noticed, like, even because I used to have such high anxiety around my phone, like, especially when I was single.

Oh, baby. I would sleep with it by my motherfucking pillow. And I would literally wake up in the middle of the night to see, like, maybe did someone text me? Did someone say something? Because I was so trauma, right? Yeah. And what I realized now was I put my phone down at 8. And the only reason I turn it is literally to turn on my meditation.

Like I turn it to turn it to turn that on and I put it in to see what time it is just so I know. And that's it. And I have consistently seen that I'm getting better sleep every fucking night because my stress is down that you can see on the whoop. It's like it's going down to nothing. Yeah. And I'm able to get a little bit more restorative. But I'd love for us to dive in a little bit more on like how these phones and the digital dating and texting and all of this is actually fucking with your brain. Yeah.

And ways that we can help. people kind of like unfuck themselves if you want. Yes. Okay, let's go back a little bit. So I cannot stress enough how important it is to not be on your phone late at night. If you are one of those people who can scroll on your phone, turn around and then go straight to sleep, good for you. I still don't recommend that you do it because if I'm pretty sure that if you had to do a polysomnography test, you would see that you're not getting good quality sleep. But I know people that can do that.

So kudos to them. But if you're not, I get, so I was at a wedding last year and I had these people like bothering me about sleep. and I'm like, I'm at a fucking wedding. Can you please leave alone? But anyway, they asked me like, how can I improve my sleep? And the first question I asked was, what time do you put your phone away? And literally all their faces were like, yeah, okay, fine. And the conversation ended right there and then because they're like, oh, I'm scrolling my phone now I can't sleep.

But the thing is, evolutionarily speaking, our eyes are responsible for dictating where we are in the day. So our circadian rhythm is very tightly regulated with the outside. I'm not going to get into shift work into this podcast because that's a. a podcasting in itself, but provided that, you know, you're trying to follow a day-night routine like the day that follows, when you

go to sleep, your eyes will see that the sun is going down and then back in the day, I don't know that because I'm not a historian, but at some point in the past. Before electricity, before wherever his name is made. Are they Benjamin Frank? No.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, my God, Dalito Smith. No, leave it in. you have to see that we're like we're a normal human beings. You can be smart in some ways. I'm very dumb enough. I can't wait to see the comments with people being like, are you fucking kidding? Oh my God.

These are. Edison. The Edison bulb. Oh, we got there. It just took us a minute. I was going to say Edward and you said, Edison, I'm so fucking proud of you right now. I hope this is it. Anyways, we'll fact check later.

So when the bulb was greeted. Okay. Before then, we would, you know, say the sunset at 7 o'clock. From 7 o'clock, your body clock starts to tell your body. It is now time to go to sleep. We have artificial light now. And not only do we have artificial light, we have these tiny little phones that we can stare into

to keep us even more awake to the brain, the super-chaismatic nucleus that is supposed to communicate with the rest of your body to tell you that it's now time to shut down is not getting shut down because it's like, well, we're still getting artificial light people. So it's obviously not nighttime. And it's quite literally confusing for lack of a better term. And I'm speaking about this in very layman's terms.

It's fun. No, we need the layman's terms. Okay, good. Yeah. Okay. There's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road. And the car that hulls groceries and hockey teams. Or the van that's gone from just practical to practically family.

Whatever you want, wherever you're going. Start your search at ototrater.ca. Canada's car marketplace. And it's also confusing and it's like I've also even noticed especially when we're going to talk about like scrolling like okay. Anybody that's listening, I know that either you're dating or you're with somebody right? Right or somewhere in between. We have all gone on like on your scratch checking their social and you're looking at their follower account and you're not we. Sabrina does not do that.

I want to preface. I don't find that to be healthy. That sounds really like obsessive. But I know a lot of people that they'll constantly, constantly check and they're going through social and I'm like if you actually stop to see. how your body feels. I can feel my heart rate going up. I can feel and I'm like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be winding down to relax and go to bed. And instead, all I'm doing is hyper-focusing on where are they? Why aren't they texting me? What's happening? Let me check their social. I would imagine that at that point, your brain is probably firing off a lot of shit.

Yes. And you're also more tired in the evening. So you're going to be more emotional. You're going to be more likely to catastrophize over situations because you are more logical in the earlier parts of your day. We have high levels of noropenephrine. We have high levels of dopamine in the first eight hours upon waking. In the evening, we're more serotonergic because serotonin, melatonin, melatonin sleep. Okay. So, and also we have

something called vigilance decrement. This is my area of research at the moment. So when you start your day, you have a sort of big pool of attention. I call it mental currency. By the end of the day, you've spent that currency on different things. And then you get into bed and you're trying to spend more money but you ain't got no money to give. So you're just kind of like they're a bit anxious about, you know,

how you're spending your cash. And I don't know if that's actually a great analogy, but up until then it made sense to me. No, me for it. Yeah, you get into bed and you don't have much to give. So anything that is remotely potentially triggering is going to then send you off into a spin. And so I want to just rewind a little bit because I want to pin that and I want to come back

to it. I'm pretty good at doing this. I thank God, because I'm not. Okay. But what I was going to do. to say with the whole sleep situation is that your brain is not designed to jump from one thing to another. If you think about it, we move optically through the world where you move into a room to go outside to get in your car to drive to the coffee shop. You don't just arrive at the coffee shop.

It's confusing for your brain to do that. So for you to jump from one app to another to another to another, it is quite stressful for the brain and it's keeping you active, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you're doing that late at night, when you're already depleted as well, you're just going to like send yourself into a really dangerous rabbit hole of wanting to check. Especially the like you close one app to go to another subconsciously. I'll go back to the other app. Yes. How did I just land back on Instagram when I just closed it? Exactly. So I actually lost my phone on Wednesday, three hours into landing in L.A. And I only got it back on Friday because someone found it. It was amazing. But for two days, I didn't have my phone. And it's funny because

every now and again I would try and reach for my phone and I didn't have it. I was like, oh yeah, I didn't have my phone. It's like a phantom limb. And then I was like, oh my God, I feel so naked without my phone. It was really nice. And that's what I want to come back to is that that feeling of wanting to check and jump from one app to another, that is also like your dopamine system now being depleted, trying to get more. Because when you spike dopamine, then there's like a rebound period where there's like a refractory period where it kind of needs to replenish. So it goes below baseline. And then what generally happens is that, If you keep doing that multiple times a day and like we do how many times you check your phone,

there's a little way to tell yourself. I don't ever want to look at that number, but you can. Okay? When it tells you're like, you've been on your phone for nine hours today, I'm like, oh, God. Not just that. I think it tells you how many times you pick it up. And that's a scary thing to me because I think the numbers are like in the hundreds. Oof. Yeah. But anyway, the more you do that, the more you need to feel just as good. And that is why by the end of the day, it doesn't feel nice, but you're still trying to feel good. okay so you feel like you're in this like a reward-seeking behavior where you're obsessively just

jumping from one app to another now the dopamine system is anchored in the pain system as well so what that means is after you've eaten the cookie after you've come off social media after you've had a cigarette after you've come back from holiday the brain goes we want more of that we want that again and you have to sit through that discomfort to rebalance that pain system that pain pleasure scale. If you don't, you're tipping that seesaw to the, to the, to the degree where you end up with an addiction. So I want people to understand that when you sip without discomfort, it's uncomfortable for a period of time, but then it goes away. And then thereafter you get bliss. Once that dopamine has been replenished, you get that nice feeling, provided that you're not in this reward-seeking

type of behavior. So, okay, so question, because this is fucking fast. This is the type of shit that I'm like, tell me more. Okay, let's, I want to make it really, um, kind of. I want to make it really, um, kind of specific, if you will. Yeah, practical, exactly. Of like, when we're talking, especially in the dating relationship, that first one to six months where it's like the texting and then this, because I don't know if you are familiar specifically with this one thing I'll die on this fucking hill about. It's like, stop with the texting before you've really known this person because you're creating all of this,

this anxiety, it felt, all sense of intimacy. But I think it goes deeper than that. And I'd love to know it in the brain. Like, I would imagine that if you meet someone in an app and you're, texting every single day and then you're hypervigilant that they didn't text you at that specific time in the morning and but they always text me good morning at 8 a.m and it's 8.5 now and why even they text me and then we start getting into the narratives and I'm checking their social like

I'd love to know like what is happening chemically one so that people know that they're not like crazy right like this is something but two so that we can understand our brains a little bit more and start to work and like realize that I'm not just saying this because I'm polliana but I do believe that there is science to the fact that you should not be engaging in this fuck ton of digital connection first before you've even spent time with someone to like get to know them. And it's easier to do that through a phone, right? Because there's no eye contact. You can say whatever you want and not have any repercussions.

Shout out trolls. Yeah, exactly. Like, trolls can call you a bitch and get away with it. Like if you did that to my face, I would slap you. Precisely. I 100% would as well. Same. Same. It's like, don't try us.

We will. But I'm with you. Yeah. I was just, I'm so curious. about. You know, and the thing with texting so much as well, and the thing is, there's nuance. Of course, like, that can work and that could be great as well, but let's assume, let's talk in the context that it isn't. What you're doing is you're releasing dopamine and you're, sort of having this communication that then is dulled when you meet the person in real life,

because it's way more fun doing it via text, knowing if you're going to get a text back or not. That's how dopamine works. The reward needs to be unpredictable for it to feel good. when, okay, so there's two types of, okay, I'm just going to break it down real simple. There's obviously three, we call it reward prediction error. Okay. So we're predicting whether there's going to be a reward. When you are expecting a reward, we actually release dopamine in anticipation of the reward to get us to drive, to motivate us to get to that reward.

So dopamine has been wrongly labeled as the reward chemical. It's actually the chemical that puts you in pursuit of gaining the reward. Right. So if you're working on a goal or you, you're working on a person texting them, trying to see if this is going to work out, you're releasing dopamine. But then when you attain that person, dopamine drops because it's expected. And that is why it can sometimes feel underwhelming when you then met the person and now you don't want this anymore because you've realized it was actually more fun playing the game. This is a chase, right? Like that's why

the chase to me, I'm like, that's why they fizzle so quick because it's not fun anymore. Exactly. Exactly. And that's why like texting before can be detrimental because you're essentially writing this fake wave that then it's not fake. And I've been scrutinized online for calling fake dopamine and real dopamine. There's a metaphor in here. It's the fakeness of having this conversation online that is not real. It's a false sense of intimacy. It's not like, wow, I know this person so well.

It's like, I don't actually know who the fuck this is. There could have been their sister typing this for all I know. Yeah. And all of a sudden, you feel this. Chatibati at this point. Dude, yes. I've got guys right to me like, hey, I did chat CBT on 10 openers. And I'm like, I can tell.

Thank you. But secondly, and like, to me, I knew there, thank you. I knew there had to be something chemically happening in the brain because I went through it so many times where like you're chatty, Kathy and like the excitement of, oh my God, are they going to text me? Are they not? And then once it starts to get predictable, when you're like, of course they're texting me. It's not fun anymore.

And you said the right word. You said predictable. Okay. So when dopamine is unpredictable, that's when it feels good. So you've got reward prediction error where it's an, it's a attained reward, so a goal. Or you've got the unpredictability. That is when dopamine spikes. If you get a notification that you weren't expecting, dopamine spikes.

Now dopamine is there to tell you what made you feel good and you want that again. It has to be unpredictable though. And that is why texting your ex on a Sunday, texting the guy that like ghosted you on a Saturday, texting this guy or this girl or whoever the fuck it is. Seeing the story how a flame and you're like, I haven't seen this person in three weeks. Yeah? This is all that dopamine that's unpredictable reinforcing this pattern of you staying there trying to chase this thing. Chasing a feeling. Yeah, exactly. So question. Okay. So now if we have people that are in that fucking loop, what do you suggest? Like, how do we actually either rewire, right? Or break these patterns? Because I do think there are going to be a lot of people listening that like, I mean, at least me, like I have the course that's out. And the first week we talk about is like, let's talk about your dating patterns, right? Like, do you always a poster child for it? Like, even my mom, she's like, it's creepy. They all look the same. They all talk the same. She's like, I don't know how you do it. But if you really have a pattern, what's happening. like how do you actually break through that, let's say dating, right, or relationships. I mean,

you're married, so you know you've been to that. How do you start to address like, here are my patterns and then how do you start to like really break through and try to rewire your brain to a healthier like where healthy isn't boring anymore? Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh, yeah. And that's like, you know, classic because people sometimes associate boring or safe with boring because the brain doesn't know the difference in right and wrong. It just knows what's been repeated. If this is the pattern, that you are used to, the brain will always like familiarity. Of course, we have a conscious brain that tells us morals, etc. But fundamentally on a subconscious level, whatever has been ingrained is going to be a place of familiarity. So if you have grown up in a family where

your parents are abusive to each other or they're toxic or you've been in toxic relationships and you get high of that, to then move into something else, it will feel uncomfortable. And vice versa. So it's the reason why people behave or repeat patterns, even though they know that they are incorrect because the brain is going to repeat the path where there is more traveled, as I said earlier. So there's, you know, I speak about loads of different things in the book about how to, it's a whole process, you know, but in the book, for example, I've got three, it's a three phase program. So phase number one, how to ditch the negative. So all the things like negativity bias, we're pulling to the surface, what is it that needs to be changed? Because isn't it Nicole Young that said, until you make the unconscious conscious,

you will repeat it and call it fate, something like that. You'll repeat, yeah, you'll repeat your patterns and call them fate. So in phase one of the book, we're really just trying to hone in on what it is that you're trying to change, what narrative is it is that you're telling yourself or what habit or what behavioral pattern, whatever it is. We then talk about things like, you know, stress, anxiety, how to break that cycle of the loop that you find yourself in and life. You know, when we are chronically stressed, the brain is not going to prioritize making behavioral changes. if you've always gone down this route, why would it be like, oh, we're super stressed and tired. But hey, girl.

Like, do you remember that thing you're trying to change? Let's do that. People yell at me when I say, I'm like, your brain's not designed to help you grow, designed to keep you safe. And like, your brain does grow. I'm like, no, no, no, you can grow your brain. But it's not intrinsically designed for you to be like, oh, Nicole's 32 this year. You know what? Let's expand.

Let's try new things. It's like, no, girl, you're not safe. You dealt with this when you were a child, so just do it again because, like, brain loves familiarity. Yes. And you can train yourself. to be more. Train, though.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There you go. So I lost my train of thought. What was that saying? We were talking about phase two. Yeah, so it's still on phase one. So we have this negative Z bias.

And this ties in very well with what you're talking about. We like to focus on the negative as humans. We have eight basic emotions. Out of the eight, we have two positive, joy and trust. And then we've got four negative. And we've got two that are positive or negative depending. So surprise or anticipation. Now, anticipation is that.

Is he going to text me back? Is she going to text me back? Surprise. Oh, they didn't text me back. Oh, they're actually in town with someone else. I've just seen on their Instagram story because I've been stalking them the whole week. So anticipation and surprise. So you can see how out of these eight basic emotions, only two are positive.

Four or negative, two positive or negative. But generally speaking, probably usually more negative. Unless you're surprised me with cake, then yes. Yeah, exactly. Did you surprise me with cake today? Next. And we go on. We'll get some cake off.

So now it's the sad part because you're like, you didn't surprise me with cake. Damn it. See? And here are you. Practical. So that's where the brain can kind of trick you also and to believe that things are worse than what they actually are.

Because if you have a social media and you have 10 lovely comments, but one negative one, you're more likely to go to bed worrying about that negative one because the brain registers negative stimuli more greatly. than positive. So you could get 10 amazing comments, but the brain is going to register the negative one more greatly because it's down to evolution. We need to know what is wrong in our lives so we can make sure that it doesn't kill us. Then cue in trauma and core beliefs and all of a sudden you got a beautiful cocktail. Exactly of like, you're fucked. You're me at that point. I see one negative comment.

Thank you. It was fucked. Not anymore. But it's true. Like I'll see one negative and I'm like, why is it that I'm just like all day you're focused on the fact that this person said you speak to? fast, which she does. But yet you can't look at all the love people have. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting. Your story could be next. If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got.

Sign up for free at rbc training ground.ca. But there's something for everybody, right? I always get this thing. Like, he talks too fast. And I'm like, yeah, but ADHD has love me. Yeah. We're here for it. you know.

And I think that let this be right there, the black and white thinking, how like, no, there are perspectives. There are other people. And that's a big thing. Like, I'll get this all the time of like, well, I don't understand. But if he liked me, then he would do this. And it's like, no, no. Let me ask you, how easy is it to actually change your entire way of doing in your brain?

Probably not very easy. I wouldn't say it's easy, but it's simple. But it's simple doesn't mean easy. Correct. Okay. So this is the problem is that, yeah. So, yeah, just back back to then phase two. Welcome to ADHD right here.

This is it. Okay, anyways, phase two. Let's stick to the plan. By the end of the podcast, we'll get to phase three. Okay. You know, it's so funny. I can tell, I can tell, I love every podcast I do. But have you got ADHD?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I could have said. I was going to diagnose you, but I could have said it. I could have been like, yeah. And it's funny because all the ADHD is, I'm like, let's just rein it back in back to the path. Because otherwise, you listen to it.

you're like, what was going on? But you know what? I can understand and most people can anyway. So anyway, but just because we're on this topic of changing, so one of the great things about the brain is that we can't change. You just have to know how. And the fundamental formula to change is repetition. Then we have tricks. We have things that we can add in. We've got hacks. We've got, you know, the book is full of hacks. phase two is a seven-step process on how to now shift your narrative. So, you know, things number one, you'll love this one. Spring clean your social media. Get rid of the people that are making you feel good. Stop checking up on he, she, them, they, whoever the hell they are.

Stop doing that because you're just tormenting yourself. You don't need to be infiltrating your life, your conscious living life with a virtual world that is fake. I spend very little time on Instagram, surprisingly. And it's weird because I'll go on and I'll have so many negative comments and I'll go off and I'll be like, yeah, I can just shut it off. Right. Like it doesn't exist in my world in this world. Because it really is, it's not like to that's why I'm like, it's not real, especially like you see stuff and it's like,

okay, how many times I'll get like, oh, they've moved on and they're so happy. And I'm like, you see two smiles and a photo. Yeah. You don't know that she's crying behind closed doors because he's dismissive. and avoidant and left her and she's crying on the floor. And that said negativity bias. Now, to add to that, we have a confirmation. Excuse me.

I'll go back. We have a confirmation bias. So if you have this thing where you're like, oh, they've moved on, you're going to see that. You'll search for the confirmation. You're going to see that, even if it wasn't like that, if I said to you right now, Sabrina, how many pink things are in this room? That's easy because there's loads of pink things. Start looking. Okay?

So same with like when you're looking for a car. You go outside. Every car is red all of a sudden because you're looking for. right car. So is that confirmation bias? Exactly. So now I say to you, okay, well, how many yellow things did you see? You're going to say, well, I wasn't looking for that. I was looking for the pink. You were looking for the confirmation that they've moved on, and that's what you're going to see. And that's how the brain works. So in that seven-step process on shifting the narrative, spring union social media, I'll talk about a couple of them. Obviously, I'll like narrate the

entire book. You don't know the book anymore. You don't need to buy it. I'm just going to read it to you right now. Q&A. Okay, so we have seven steps, but visualization. So you can basically create a blueprint for where you want your brain to go. Now, the visualization, basically, it got a little bit murky with vision boards and manifestation. And I'm not opposed to any of that, but it has to be specific.

So when we look at visualization research in practice or in the field, we're looking at the functional connectivity between the motor cortex and the cerebellum. Now, the motor cortex is responsible for initiating movement. So when we ask athletes to visualize the ball going into the net or over a pole or whatever, and then they actually perform the movement through motor activity, there's a stronger connectivity when they've visualized it before. Now, with manifestation, and again, I'm not opposed to any of that, but people are like, imagine yourself in the future being a billionaire. Yeah. What? Yeah. Like, where are the That's the thing is like it's fine to get clear on what you like I always like to do How do you want to feel with your partner?

How do you want like what does a Sunday look like? Right? Like we go and do this together and we do like getting very like, oh wow, yeah, I can feel feeling safe. I can feel having a partner. I can tell everything to versus I have this really rich guy who's six five and we're going to go and jet around Paris and you're like, yeah. I actually did. And like this probably is about the same thing. I did read a study where they had like two groups of people.

one of them they taught how to play the piano and the other they explained how and they saw that the same parts of the brain were activated. Yes, exactly. And I talk about that research in the book. So neither group had ever played the piano. One group had to imagine and the other group had to actually do a play a five finger piece on the piano and they had similar levels of activity in the motor, again, the motor cortex. They were looking at the motor cortex. And so when if you visualize yourself, so let's say you are somebody that wakes up and checks your phone in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, you can. can actually visualize yourself not doing that, diverting that behavior into something else. So you can visualize something like, okay, I know I'm going to wake up in an anxious state, wanting to know what's going on in my phone. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to get up and have a glass of water, whatever it is. I'm just throwing out some ideas here. But you're actually then changing that neural pathway of what you would normally practice. And that can actually create a blueprint for changing that pattern of behavior. But you have to reinforce it. That's

the trick is you have to actually then do the thing. And the more you do it, the easy. The it becomes. So yes, it's going to be hard not checking your phone first thing in the morning. Yes, it's going to be hard not checking on them on their Instagram and stalking them or whatever it is that you do with your life. But I want everyone to know that over a period of time, the brain is so incredibly adaptable and manageable. If you drive it down a particular way, it will go. It will go. I'd like to be the poster child for how the brain can change. And I'm not like arrogant to be like, I did it. It's like, no, I was going after the patterns. I was going after men that treated me like my father that were reminiscent of my father.

Maybe not the exactitudes of it, but like they might as well have fucking been named Yuri like at this point. And I really like as I started to kind of evolve and grow and the biggest thing that you said earlier was put space and kind of what I learned as well is like when you regulate your nervous system, it's not that you're all of a sudden like, I'm fine, everything's good. It's like, no, you're allowing yourself to make a choice. And the choice I allowed myself to make was like, okay, literally I would literally talk to myself and be like,

Zohar. You could do exactly what you always do and go back to begging this person, pleading, texting. I was like, or you can try and do something that what would the secure version of me do? What would somebody who really? That was a version of visualization. Exactly. What was that person that loves themselves? She would say, no thank you and walk away. Yeah. Now, did that hurt? You bet your ass it did. Yeah. But then I did it. Feel nice. Because you want to stay where it's familiar and repeat that pattern, even though you know. So the comfort of the disknown is worse than the comfort of the known, even if the comfort of the known is in what you want anymore. 100%.

And I love that you said that because one of the steps in phase two is make space. So over time, that space, that second where you decide to change, it may not happen straight away. You might act with, we call it automaticity. Something that's so deeply ingrained that you don't think about how you walk in and you turn on all your cameras, you just do them. You don't think about how you make your coffee or how quickly you speak. You just do it.

That's automaticity. And at first, when you want to break that pattern, it's going to, it might feel. possible. I get that a lot of people are like, oh, but I don't know, I can't feel that space. And you might not in the beginning, but over time, you will. The brain also has an amazing ability to correct errors. We have an area of the brain called the error detection area. It's in the interior single aid cortex. If anyone wants to look that up, just throwing names in the case, and I was like, I'm a superhero. I don't want to read about this, but you can also read about it in the book. But that area is actually really good at saying, actually, we didn't

do that right. Let's stay about next time. And when we have that knowledge, we are now empowered. instead of being like, oh, well, I'll do it wrong every single time. No, the brain actually does know how to dive out. You just have to let it sometimes and teach it that it's okay. So sorry. I just apologize to the microphone. I'm so sorry. That's my people pleasing pass and gum in it.

I'm so sorry, babe. But even look how you noticed it. You caught yourself. You're like, did I just do that? That's the beauty of this healing journey. What I started to do was I would notice myself, like my pattern was the react, react, right? Not respond. And I made it a rule where I would go.

go no and drop my phone just to like because I had to put space yeah I knew that I wasn't consciously going to put space between it myself so it dropped my phone yeah did I break it a few times yeah well sometimes that's the price you got to pay for healing correct it's not cheap it's not nice we got a screen protector up the wazoo but what now because I did it over and over and over again I drop my phone this bitch does not work but because I would constantly be like no I don't want to deal with this right now or no Sabrina give yourself a second now instinctually when I get something, the first thing I do, I don't even think about it is I put my phone down and like, what's happening in my body, I start to understand me.

Yeah. Then I'm like, I want the wave because you know what I mean? Like, you're going to get that wave of heat? Yeah. The whoosh. Yeah. Where you're like, oh, God. And then I let that pass.

So then I'm like, okay, cool. I give myself a choice. I love that you're saying this. I'm going to give you a cheaper hack. Please. I'm going to give you a cheaper hack. So, you don't have to keep dropping your phone. So if you have been stressed and you huff and puff, you're like, oh, oh.

Yeah. So that is actually a good thing. Your brain has a mechanism in the midbrain that is responsible for regulating your breathing rate. So when you're stressed, your breathing rate becomes shallow. And then when you are trying to regulate back to a parasympathetic system that is a rest and digest, you sigh to dump carbon dioxide and communicate with your brain and body that there's nothing threatening in your environment and you can now relax. So sighing is a good thing. We can fast track that by actually doing the physiological sign. So you can, you know, You go, let's do two of them together. Okay. Can I just say how Ryan used to make fun of me for a tech guy, for anyone who doesn't want it to call him by his name, when we used to go to yoga. Every time I'd be like, ah. And I make these really loud noises. And everyone, he and his friend were like, why does she make such loud noises?

And I'm like, I'm releasing stress. I am queuing. Yes. I sigh all day. Ryan will know within an hour. If I sigh too many times, he'll be like, hey, are you like, are you okay? Do you need to talk? But sometimes it just became normalized that it's like, that's my coping mechanism of just sign.

Because I know breathwork, like breathing is a big key, right? So let me break it down for you. When you're in a stressful situation, a lion or a text or you're about to respond or react, sorry, not respond, your stress levels go up. Now, your brain is not designed to understand what is going on. in the environment is designed to run, fight, or freeze. So fight, fly freeze, right? We know about that. Everyone knows about that mechanism.

So your brains are going to go, why is there a lion here? I don't think he's that bad. He looks kind of small. Yeah, you can't reason with yourself in that situation. So you have to regulate first. The lion has to go away. And that's where you said you waited for that wave to disappear. That was your stress levels coming back down.

And you can do that by actually doing the breathing mechanism. So you're communicating, the body's communicating with the brain that there is no long a stressful, threatening stimuli in your environment. There's no longer a reason for you to be stressed at your phone. So instead of dropping your phone, you can do the physiological side to break that pattern. What that does is it lowers the stress hormones and then it reinstates the frontal cortex. Now, your frontal cortex is like the CEO of your brain. It's responsible for logical thinking, responding with, what's the word?

I love that word. Not crass. The other one. Kander. responding with candor or diplomacy instead of you know it's more of the CEOs of the company exactly so breathe take a pause then respond with that mindset because when you respond with that logical mindset you're less like to think catastrophize can we talk about catastrophizing a little bit because I think a lot of people are really struggling with you know like I have no control right like I can't I spiral and I catastrophize and I'm like I know that that's protective mechanism and your brain's trying to. But like, what's actually, is it like your cortisol is fucking going crazy? What's actually happening in here? And how can we like take control? Rewire to stop allowing catastrophizing and spiraling to take over. Exactly. So that's a pattern that you would have

learned. It's your brain trying to again attach itself to something concrete that, like an answer or whatever. And that is why what's interesting about the physiological side, that breathing mechanism is that it does reinstate control. So when you do that, you're like, Okay, I can actually take back the steering wheel and decide where I'm going to dive out to this scenario. So it's an underrated tool and it's free and you don't have to drop your phone to do it. I'm never going to live this one down. You're always going to have your phone. Because when we catastrophize, your limbic system is responsible for governing emotion.

And it is, quote, unquote, bigger than the frontal cortex. The frontal cortex is part of the neocortex, neo meaning new. it's what differentiates us from other animals. So it's less developed than the limbic system. The frontal cortex is less developed than the emotional brain. And the emotional brain is the limbic system. And the cortex takes longer, like it doesn't stop growing until you're older, right? And the other parts stop growing when you're younger?

Yeah. So the frontal cortex takes longer to develop. And it's the reason why teenagers may know the risks but not care because they're like, I don't give a shit. I'm going to do it anyway. And they drink drive and they have unprotected sex and get their CDs. And they're like sick. pregnant with 18 and you're like cool here we go okay so that that does explain that's why i was

curious okay so let back to the limbic system yeah and that limbic system if you allow it it will it will override and it will take back control now the great thing about all of these tools all of these kind of like self-awareness mindfulness mindfulness breathing doing the work is that you're what you're you're not just reinstating frontal cortex activity you're actually strengthening the functional connectivity between the frontal cortex and the rest of the brain so that when you're find yourself in a challenging situation or a stressful situation or catastrophizing or being more emotional, you can bounce back easier with practice. And that's where the rewiring is. So you are essentially making that part of the brain stronger. Now, I'm going to get the question. I always get

the question. What about individuals with ADHD and executive control? Yes, it absolutely applies to individuals, neurodivergent individuals as well. We've seen it in studies that you can increase the activity of the frontal cortex and strengthen it through things like meditation, through things like, you know, doing the breathing, rediverting. So in rewire, the whole of chapter one teaches you how to dismantle that negative firing pattern that you can start shifting into a new narrative. And then there's a seven-step process on shifting. And what I liked about what you said earlier was something about practicing a different outcome. You did say that, right? One of the steps in shift the narrative is preparing for setbacks. So in 2008, Michael Phelps, he won the

well he broke the wall record he got eight gold Olympics in one in one Olympics yeah and in the 200 meter fly he dove in and his goggles like lifted and they got filled with water and you can actually hear the commentators I tried to find the video today but obviously

every country is going to be different I remember watching it in South Africa because that's where I was at the time and the commentators were like oh my god is he going will he winnie oh they're a bit like kind of panicked and he was absolutely fine and he won the race anyway

when they spoke to him and his coach after the race they said oh yeah, we took that into consideration. We knew every single thing that could go wrong and we were prepared. When you practice through visualization a different outcome, like you said, you were practicing taking a different route, you have that in your back pocket. So I love using this example. I have a client who is a chronic yes sayer.

He says yes to everything. So what he does is he'll get confronted at work and be like, oh, can you just do this report? And he'll be like, yes, because that's what he's always practiced. But he doesn't want to because he's too busy and he can't actually do it. then he feels guilty. So we've been practicing in an alternate response. So when he is confronted with a question, he can go, hey, I would really love to, but I'm really busy right now, so I can't.

That's in his back pocket. And that's a form of practicing a different outcome through visualizing and preparing for the setback. And I love that. And now let's, I just want to clarify that Nicole is not giving you freedom to now catastrophize the dating situation and think of every worst case scenario that could possibly happen and how to protect yourself. So let's, I'd love to know the clarity on that one. Yes. I'm sure people are like, oh no, but I overthought this and I anticipated this was going

to happen. And it's like, then that feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah. So there's a very clear distinction between doing this as an activity, as a goal directed activity. So let's use this specific. You are dating, you're texting, you know that this person could potentially ghost you. So instead of seeing it as like, oh, I knew that this would happen, you could see it as like, I'm prepared. When we do it as a goal directed activity to protect ourselves to, you know, make sure that we are prepared, the frontal cortex is active. And we're basically stipulating how to how to navigate these situations should failure arise. When we do that from an emotional side of things with that limbic system active, that's when you catastrophize. That's when you're like, oh,

I knew that this would happen to me. I'm worth nothing. This always, I always get ghosted. that's that kind of background narrative emotional brain that's speaking. When the lymph, sorry, when the frontal cortex is speaking, it goes, okay, there are fuckers out there in the world that do this. Move on. It's so funny you say that because one thing I always, like, when I work with my clients, I'll be like, okay, can we just talk about, like, maybe this person might not be in your life for life, right? Like, it's okay to become comfortable with, yeah, this might not work out, right? Yeah. And like just being kind of prepared, like I always used to, when I'd get really, like, in my dating world,

what helped me a lot was I'd be like, okay, what is the motion or feeling I'm so scared of having? They're going to leave me or I might never hear from them. And I'm like, okay, so maybe sit in that for a second. And I'd just kind of allow myself to be like, okay, what would happen if they leave? Well, I'm still here, right? I'm like, I'm still breathing. I'm still functioning. I'm still alive. I've got my dog at the time, RIP to Clemmy. And it was like, you maybe. But it's like, you know, I had like Clem or I have my friends or whatever, like things like that to where then if that happened, I'd be like, but that's okay. I knew that this could happen. Yeah. Same when I, my suggestion all the time is like when you're dating to always have like a backup plan not that

you're like, ah, revert always. But like, let's say I was going on a date and that person flaked instead of me being woe is me and da. I'm like, you know what? That's cool. I'm going to go for Thai food tonight because I prep. Exactly. You had that plan B. You had you prepared for that setback saying if I get ditched tonight, I'm going to go for Thai. And it's okay. Like we can hold two conflicting thoughts like it can still be sad. Oh my God, yeah. You can still be bummed. Can we actually talk about that. The holding two conflicting thoughts. To me, it's such a sign of growth. Because I came from black and white thinking, which was very,

it's this or it's this. It's yes or it's no. You add some gray. You start to have some paint strokes. But I'd love to talk about Genusian thinking. Genusian thinking. Genusian thinking. I'm going to fuck this up. Genusian thinking. There was an amazing quote that I always quotes on my Instagram and I can't remember who the person that said it is. So I do apologize for anyone that's listening. And it's like, you stole that. It's okay, I'll DM you about it.

Sorry. I'll DM you about it. The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in mind without letting either of the one bother you. And that is true because when we reach that level of self-actualization or growth, you can hold opposing thoughts in mind and not let either bother you. Now, yes, you can be stood up and it will still hard. And I love that you said that because I don't want anyone to push away these things.

feedings as though they mean nothing. These negative emotions we spoke about, they are very real and they're very important. But my question is, are you lingering on that emotion? Are you letting it affect the rest of your day? Are you letting that negativity bias now tell you that you're having a fucking awful day because that one person ditched you? Okay. It can suck in the moment and it will suck in the moment. No one is immune to rejection. No one feels good with it. Yeah. And like, oh, okay, cool. It's all good. Even both of us. Like, even both of us being in our careers and where we are. Somebody that's still attacks, you're like, ouch, okay, well, I guess you, I'm, there's still a little girl in there that's like,

oh, I just want to be chosen, right? It's completely normal. It's complete, it's like the brain does not deal well with rejection, but how quickly can you bounce back? Now, we know through neuroscientific studies that we can become more resilient. We can become, we can have better willpower. We can have better resilience to emotional distress. We can have stronger functional connectivity between the frontal cortex that tell us that sucked, but we can deal with this. And over time, our brain learns a new set of rules about how the world works. And we can rewire ourselves to be stronger, better, bigger, more adaptable. Now, is there anything specific when it comes to the rewiring that, like, anyone in the audience,

especially like first steps, right? Like, outside of buying the book. But, like, what is something that you love to tell? Like, where – because if people are just like, I don't know where the fuck to start, I don't know how to do this, especially the – the – that two conflicting thoughts of, like, it's the same one like, you can miss them. and also know they're not good for you. Right?

Like we can hold both truths at once. And I find like, Ryan and I were talking about that the other day where he was like, I feel like we're at a time not even just about anything specific in general where it's like, it's either this or it's this. Yes. There is no, hey, let me understand you. Or it's either you're canceled or I agree with you. And it's like, okay.

So we need to break a lot of these patterns. But for anyone listening that's like really in that, I always go back to my limbic and I always go into my emotional and I'm struggling to, especially people, look with rejection as well. Like I have some folks that are like I literally can't get at a bed like I can't handle the fact that this person doesn't want to be with me. Obviously we know that there could be deeper roots. But what is something that people can do that you find is just a nice way to start that people can get this journey going? Yeah. Get out your pens and papers. Physiological sign to snap yourself out of that thought for a second. Just reinstate some logical

thinking, lower those stress hormones. Then, so you've got this limbic system. You've got this limbic system that's active. When we think of words, we actually take up a lot of brain space and the thoughts are running in an area called the default mode network. What that means is, is that the thoughts are spontaneous, they don't have a beginning and an end. So do you ever have that feeling when you're like ruminating? You don't really know what you're thinking, but it's just kind of going. As soon as you try to talk it out loud, put a narrative to it, write it down, journal it, talk about it to your coach, you start to make sense of it and it starts to feel better. You remove that emotional friction of it.

That's because the default mode network takes up a lot of brain space and when you have to generate words, they take up a much smaller space of the brain that requires logic. So that is why getting out of your own head is really helpful because as soon as you put a story to it, you're putting your bookmarking a beginning and an end to what it is your feeling that can then help you try and find a solution or not. Now, so let's go back to the tools.

Tool number one, physiological sigh. Tool number two, you can redirect. So either into journaling or talking it out loud, putting a story to it. You know how you, or sometimes you go, I feel a particular way, but I don't out explain it. And as soon as you start doing it, you feel better. Or you realize you didn't feel like that at all. Yeah. Okay.

Oh, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Ryan talks shit about me all the time because he's like, you just talk. And I'm like, that's how I process. If I sit with it in my head, I will go fucking insane if I just let it noodle. So I'll call my mom. I'll call a friend.

I'm like, I just need to say, I just need to get it out. And I'm like, oh, I feel better. Yeah. That's exactly why, because you're putting a narrative to it. So you can help yourself remove that emotional friction that holds so much power over you when you keep it inside. Now, not everybody's vocal. That's absolutely fine. You can journal it.

So step number one, physiological sigh, reinstate some logic there to redirect into a journal or whatever. Or the other option is to reframe. So you just got dumped or you just got stood up and you now think that, actually, I don't know if there's a good example there. I'm going to give it to the example I've given before that I know works. Let's say you start a new job and you suck at your job right now and you keep saying, oh, I suck, I suck, I suck. Let's reframe that. Yeah, you do suck right now. You're in a new job.

But you're not going to suck forever. You will learn. And it's that reframing it so that can help you to sort of compartmentalize what it is your feeling. So when you are feeling stressed at work, you can do the physiological sign, say, okay, it's all a little bit overwhelming right now because it's a new job for me right now, but in a month's time, I will feel better. And it's just a learning process. You can apply that to dating. Like, you know, if you have a better example, hit me. Well, it's more interesting about, like, as a kid, when you're walking, it's like, when you start to walk, you're like a little alien trying to get your feet and then you do it, you do it, and you do it. And you do it. And you practice and you get better at it. I think probably the narrative that really starts at like something I could even reframe. It's like, they didn't text me. And it's all of a new to create this. Well, they must be this and they must be this. And it's like, for me, I'm always stopping.

I'm like, okay, Sabrina, what facts do I have to back any of this up? None, right? So let me reframe. It could also be that just because I'm available doesn't mean everyone else's. And just because I'm in this moment and free it by my phone doesn't mean that this other person prioritizes things like that in the same way. Exactly. So I'm going to give some space to just let's see what happened.

Yeah. Every time with my clients, with myself, especially with myself, when you give that space that is so uncomfortable, I know for my anxious. folks that are listening. It's a real struggle because you actually think you're going to die. No one's died by giving space between a text, right? Like, I don't think scientifically, unless you've heard of that. I haven't. But your body might react and that's where we have to go, okay, so your body thinks that this is a threat that's going to kill you. That's my first indicator that this is nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with you and what's coming up with me.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the fun that you actually have control over. Yeah. And what I was going to say is there's amazing research where they basically took two groups. They made one group sit on the sofa after a stressful event, and they made the other group play Tetris. And what they found is that the individuals that played Tetris recovered from the stress a lot quicker than the people that were sitting down. Because if you have an argument with Susan at work and you come home and you sit on the sofa and you try and relax,

you're still going to be thinking about it. And the brain still perceives that threat to be there. Whereas if you dive into a hobby, if it's video games fine. There's actually not that much terrible data on video games in the short term, not chronic use. And obviously when it starts to become an addiction, the doses in the poison, the poison's in the dose.

But so ideally it would be something that's like, you know, good for you, good for your body, good for your mind. You go into a hobby, whether it be painting, guitar playing, jihitsu, ballet, what anything, going for a run. I was like a walk. Yeah, going for a walk. And we'll come back to that because walking is, I don't even have I butchered that, but I'm not French.

Trey bien. There you go. So when you do that, you're essentially completely immersing yourself in something else so your brain can basically decompress from the event. What tends to happen is when you come back to it, you think about it with a more logical mindset. You're like, oh, I really did catastrophize an hour ago. It's probably not as bad as I thought.

And now this is the trick is that you do want to come back to it. You don't want to just put a plaster on it and be like, yeah, let's just push it under the rug and pretend we're okay. In an ideal world, you would then deal with those emotions and reframe or sort of compartmental eyes or help yourself understand why it is that you felt that way in the first place. But walking is phenomenal because we have, so you've heard of EMDR therapy, right? When you walk, your eyes are moving side to side, lateral eye movement. That and also when the objects in your periphery are moving past you, your eyes are basically

stabilizing to keep you looking forward. And those activities, the side-to-side and the stabilization, activate a part of the brain called the orbital frontal cortex. And why that's important is because it competes for resources with the amygdala. So the amygdala is deactivated during a walk because the orbital frontal cortex is active. So that is why when you go for a walk, you can process your thoughts, feelings, and emotions without the fear perception involved that tells you that things are really bad. There's nothing I loved better. When I lived in New York with Clemmy, that was like my thing. Like it didn't matter what the weather was.

I was going on like at least 40 to 50,000 steps a day. Yeah. Even now, like it's true. I mean saying that we don't live in a neighborhood where I can walk. But like that's my processing. I go off for a walk. And I used to even just make it mindful. I'd be like, ooh, the wind on my body.

Yeah. Oh, I felt the sun on my face. Yeah. And I allowed it. And like I would do the like scanning for safety, you know, where I'd be looking around and be like, oh, I love that tree. And I would just call out because it's like when I'm in this moment, my brain can't freak out about.

freak out about what hasn't happened. And I made it a rule. I wouldn't touch my phone on the walk. I would look just for music, right? Or like just to change whatever I was doing. But I wasn't texting. I wasn't engaging because I wanted to give myself a minute. And I think a lot of people underestimate when they're like, okay, well, I went on a walk. I'm like, what was the experience of your walk? And what was the quality of your walk? And you know what? Here's a reality. I would go on like 30 a day. It's okay if every five minutes, I would get home, literally pee and be like, come, we're going back out.

Just because that's what worked for me. Great. Find a coping mechanism. to be able to get you out of the stinking thinking. Stinking thinking that's my mama's thing. She always just like, you're in you stink and thinking. That's far away. Take it. Take it. Hellie. She'll give it to you.

But it was so real because that shit, like it's just a shitstorm that you're kind of in yourself. That's that default mode network, just running, no beginning, no end, just keeping you in this loop of ruminative thoughts that are cyclical. They go on forever. If you don't interject, that feeling can go on for days. days, weeks, months, years. That's why we see people I've been hung up on this person for five years

and you're like, you've just been on this loop, man, you've just been on this. And that's a reinforced pattern of thinking that those neural pathways have now, that's become a habit. You have a habit. I have a friend who checks up on her ex's new girlfriend that has now broken up because it's a habit for her to do this. Every day she wakes up and she checks what she's doing.

That's crazy. And that's not, I'm not, you know, this is like my non-judgmental side. Like, I can see how that happens. Like it's a thing. As you say that non-jo- and I'm like, that's crazy. Because I was, I was showing a face like, she's crazy. No, no, no, but I've been there.

I've been there myself. I've stalked my ex. I've stalked my ex as new ex. You're going to the, well, that's why like when people reach out and they're like, you know, what's wrong? Like, why can't, you know, you should be checking the socials. And I'm like, you should not be checking their follower count every fucking day to see how many new women they found or how many new people they're following.

You should not. You don't need to look at, well, they. liked this message and they hearted this message. I'm like, you are hyper-focused. Because you're just creating a bubble of what you think is happening. And we know that your perception can skew all of that. We have a bias. We have an negativity bias. We have a confirmation bias. We have a perception bias. We've got all this bias that's telling us something is. And so one of the chapters I've called it, things are not, what have I called it? Oh, my book. You'll see it. You'll believe it when you see it. Yeah. I have a picture that says that.

And I love it. Yeah. Because it's true. When you, It's the same as like if you're dating and you don't believe that there's anyone out there or you don't believe you're worthy of love, good luck having somebody come and be like, hey, I love you and you're like, get fucked. Yeah. Because you don't believe that it's possible. You're not going to see it. Yeah. Even if it's right in front of it. Yeah.

You'll see it when you believe it. You'll see it when you see it. I think the chat is called you'll believe it when you see it. Whatever it is. I'm just going to check it. You'll see it when you believe it. Yeah, you'll see it when you believe it. Because I was like, you'll believe it when you see it.

Is the traditional. Yeah. But you'll see it when you believe it is true because it's like that actually was a mindset when I saw like this, I have it. It's literally in my room. Yeah. And I've had it for like 10 years. It's like this old ragney thing I bought in Union Square. Yeah. And every time I look at it, I'm like, that's a reminder because all that I have right now came because at one point I looked and I was like, I could do this. Yes. I can do this. And I saw myself. Okay, I saw myself in front of my mic. I saw myself interviewing people. I saw that didn't mean I had a face to these people. And that's why I want anybody right now. That's, I think, the difference between the visual. visualization versus really feeling it. But you can have this idea of who you want to be. You know, you don't have to like, be like, oh, no, it doesn't work. So I'm not going to do it. No.

Just making sure that you're not just deluding yourself into thinking that you could, you know, do things without actually putting in the work. Being cognizant that like, you know, did you see that whole meme that's going around like 65, finance, blue eyes. And it's like this girl. And she's like, I want to get that 6.5 works in finance, blue eyes. And then they did like a breakdown. And they were like, so what it ended up being where they were like, there are three people on the planet that match her criteria. And that's where you start to go into like, that's dangerous because you're getting so granular on.

They have to be this. It's like, so what if he's six to? Right? Like, so you're going to overlook because your brain's like, but he's not six, five. And I have a client like that. He's like, yeah. And you're just, good luck. And it's just, and that's okay.

I will meet you where you're at. But I think after everything we just fucking talked about, the moral of this goddamn story is two things. One, buy the book. Two, I love it. He's a couple of a sister anyway. I love this book. I've been wholeheartedly reading it because I genuinely believe in it. But two, that change is possible, growth is possible, but you have to understand how to actually get it.

And I think people, they think this misconception of, well, you're in my, like, I'm in your life. So you should just change for me. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Simply because you exist is called entitlement. That's not why somebody is going to change. They can change with the right tools and the understanding of how to actually do it. It's not impossible. Yeah.

But it's not just going to happen. No. But I also want people to have compassion Because one of the things about behavioral changes We don't do well when we berate ourselves How many times did you make yourself feel shit Because you smoke the cigarette or you ate I mean, I don't smoke, but you know

When I did, yeah There you go or ate the cookie And again, there's nothing wrong with cookies But like, you know, in excess Every time you did the bad behavior That you weren't supposed to do And then you berated yourself How many times did you change your behavior

On that one account? It's the same with like, never When people attack And I'm like, okay, instead of beating yourself up I can't believe I text them, I'm so stupid I'm like, imagine there's a little girl inside of you and you're telling her how dumb she is, how stupid she is. How you can't.

It's like, that's just going to perpetuate. Instead, a hundred percent. Holding compassion of like, I'm a human, right? Like just even brain is doing its thing. I'm a human. It's okay. This is normal. Yeah.

Just even a little compassion because then you do that for yourself, you could do for other people. And we do better on positive behavioral change. So if you say, okay, I just text that person. But actually, I just remember that Sabrina said X, X, X, Z. Okay. I'm going to remember for the first time. That's a win. Right. That's a win. You fell right now, but it's okay because we know that the brain is really good at correcting errors the next time we're not going to do that. And every time we go, oh, I didn't text that person today or I didn't do that. I did this. And you start to see the yellow.

Well, you think I used yellow as an example earlier. You start to see that there's more yellow in your environment. There's more positive than the negative when you look for it. Dude, thank you so much for bestowing so much wisdom and so many laughs. Where can people... I actually don't normally swear this much in podcasts, but I feel like you're pulling it out of me. I'm like, yeah. Where can people find you on the interwebs?

And of course, the book will be linked. Thank you. Thank you. I only have Instagram, Nicole's Neuroscience. I have my website, of course, but I'm not quite on TikTok yet. You're welcome to follow me, but I've got 300 followers

and I don't post as regularly as I should, but just wait. I will. We'll be starting on YouTube soon. But yeah, Nicole's Neuroscience. That's where I'm at. Sweet. Thanks for having it.

Thanks for being on.