The Wellness Scoop - Using neuroscience to reinvent yourself, gratitude, and nature bathing with Dr Tara Swart

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

I’m joined by neuroscientist, medical doctor, Senior Lecturer at MIT, and author of the best-selling book The Source, Dr Tara Swart. Tara’s works focuses on disseminating the simple and pragmatic neuroscience-based messages which support that we have the power to change our destiny and reach our fullest potential by harnessing manifestation and reshaping our brain. We discuss: How you can physiologically reinvent yourself via neuroplasticity The neuroscience-based steps to create the life you desire Changes in the brain and stepping outside your comfort zone How gratitude influences your manifesting potential Simple tools to build resilience and create opportunities for yourself   Each week I unpack a wellness trend with GP Gemma Newman. This week on Fact or Fad we’re looking at nature bathing. More about Tara: ‘The Source: Open Your Mind, Change Your Life’ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Source-Open-Your-Mind-Change/dp/B07KM72PJB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38YJHOOCW5IP7&keywords=the+source&qid=1665134875&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIyLjM4IiwicXNhIjoiMS44MiIsInFzcCI6IjIuMjkifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=the+source%2Caps%2C70&sr=8-1   Book on gratitude mentioned at 23 minutes: https://gratitudediaries.com/     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Wellness. What on earth does it mean? And why would we need to unpack it? With over 58 million hashtags on Instagram, the topic has really never been more prominent. But, and there is a but here, three in five of us feel that wellness is incredibly confusing. We want to feel healthier, we want to feel happier, but we have no idea what's clickbait and what's genuinely health enhancing. Who's an expert and who's peddling absolute nonsense and look I am right here with you on this at times I've also found this world really hard to navigate. So welcome to Wellness Unpacked our new podcast hosted by me Ella Mills author entrepreneur and founder of Deliciously Ella. This series aims to do just as it states,

unpack the world of wellness with expert guests. These guests will be sharing with me and with you their three pieces of advice for a better life, to feel healthier and happier. This is a show and a conversation that's about progress it is not about perfection it's about helping you make small simple sustainable changes and within that I'm going to be testing out a different wellness trend every single week intermittent fasting celery juice, collagen, ketogenic diets, CBD, you name it, I'll try it. I'll then unpick the trend, separating fact from fad, with my friend and NHS GP, Dr Gemma Newman. And together we'll be equipping you with the tools that can genuinely make a difference to your life and well-being, and equally helping you potentially put to one side the trends that may make a difference to your life and well-being and equally helping you potentially put to one side

the trends that may make a little bit less difference. So are you ready for episode 10? Our 10th guest on Wellness Unpacked is neuroscientist, author and business advisor Dr. Tara Swart. Her book The Source had a massive impact on my life when I first read it several years ago now and I think you're gonna really enjoy listening to her. She is a trained psychiatrist and then around 10 years ago she moved into the field of executive coaching. She utilizes neuroscience to help people use their brains so much more effectively to get so much more out of themselves and their lives. So what is the secret? How can we use our brains better? Well according to Tara it all comes down to the idea of manifestation and the law of attraction. We talked about manifesting in

different ways with Roxy Nafusi a few weeks ago and I wanted to get Tara on after that to talk about the neuroscience so we could delve deeper into the science behind this idea of rewiring our brains to create the lives that we really really want. So I cannot wait for you to hear this one. Well welcome to the show Tara, thank you so much for coming to join us. It's so nice to be here again after this strange few years that we've had. I know. So anyone listening, Tara and I met before lockdown, before the world changed kind of in an unrecognizable way.

And it's really nice to come back. I've definitely learned a lot since we first talked. So we've got a lot of questions for you and that I think our listeners will have as well. But I'm going to try and hold my horses before we get into all of that. Could you tell us what wellness means to you? To me it's very holistic in terms of that I like to look at it physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually and I would say that fourth piece is definitely something I had more time to be conscious of during the lockdowns. I think in the fast-paced life that I certainly had before the first lockdown it's just so easy to rush through a day, a week, a month and not really think about all four of

those things and it certainly fell into place for me that yeah you have to be physically fit and healthy, you need to look after your mental health health I mean professionally I'm so worried about the consequences of the pandemic for that for everyone. Emotionally being regulated is important and then that spiritual piece which is that you're mindful you're conscious you're aware that you have that time of being rather than always doing. I couldn't agree with that more. Before we get into a bit more of the kind of practical sense of how you look at your life and how you start to take those lessons in, can you give us a kind of a 101 of this concept? I'm sure people listening, obviously a few weeks ago we were talking to Roxy Nafusi about manifesting and

we've talked quite a lot this season actually on the power of the mind as a total and the importance for your mental well-being and your total well-being of being aligned with yourself. But with your neuroscientist hat on, how does the mind work? What is the science behind almost giving credence to taking that time to understand what your values are, who you want to be. How does it work in terms of what the brain takes in and what then comes out? Well I actually

think Roxy puts it really well and really simply which is that you're setting a goal or creating a vision and then you're either allowing the things around you, the circumstances, the environment, or you are actively working towards making that become true in reality. The science behind that is basically it's underpinned by neuroplasticity, which is the ability for your brain to change at any age, any mindset, any stage of life. And there's a sort of four-step process to that, which starts with raised awareness. So you have to know what you want. And there's a sort of four-step process to that, which starts with raised awareness. So you have to know what you want. And even this morning, I had a friend who I did my PhD with, so kind of, you know, my age, has a PhD in neuroscience, say to me, but the problem is, I don't really know what I want. And I've had that quite a lot more, I would say, even in the

last year or two. Is it sort of I'm not really happy I feel a bit stuck something's not right but I don't know how to shift it because I don't quite know which direction I want it to take? Yeah it's what I call stuck on the wrong side of neuroplasticity which is that you know you're not happy with something whether it's your job your living circumstances your relationship your own health fitness weight whatever but you're not quite sure what the ideal vision is and you definitely feel like you don't really know what you could do to get yourself from a to b even if you did know um but in terms of my my coaching in my experience having that raised awareness is 50 of the battle battle. Once you know what you want, the other three steps are kind of just the other 50%. So we do know what we want if we take that

time to step back and do nothing and be and really look inward. Because it's really in the brain, it's raising from subconscious to conscious, the things that you want and often it's lack of deserving or fear that it'll be very difficult or impossible to do that keeps it subconscious so allowing that trust and love to flourish and like let that sort of come to the surface and think I mean in a way we were chatting a bit earlier about children that you know what you dreamt of being when you were a child or another way I put it is is your life panning out exactly how you always dreamed it would be and if it's not then where are the areas that it's not and it doesn't have to be specific I find myself giving the advice more and more that what if you just think about how you'd like your life to feel or a theme that you'd like to have in your life? That's a good start. That's been so powerful for me. I've been very into this topic

over the last few months in particular, exactly what you said there, Tara. I felt something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't tell you exactly really what it was because technically things were really good, albeit relatively stressful the vast majority of the time and it was trying to make space every single day to do some meditations and connect with myself and understand a little bit more about what it was and I realized it wasn't a thing I think I kept attaching it to I want this to happen or I want that to happen or I really want to get this over the line and actually wasn't any of that it was a state it was a much deeper sense of peace and quiet and I realized if I could like take my ego out take

fear out take expectations out it was so much more that and then doing the tools every single day which sometimes I don't want to do or don't feel like doing but I have consistently stuck with is extraordinary the ripple effect but I was quite struck by the fact that it doesn't have to be a thing. It was much more a state. Wow, I love that. I'm really glad you said that because often when we're successful, when business is booming, when we've got the number of kids that we want, when we've got the social life and the holidays that we want, it's actually really stressful. And there's no price for taking that stress away. And that's probably really what a lot of people want is to have inner peace and have, you know, that

self-reliance and resilience and those sorts of things that it's hard to put on a vision board or, you know, sort of even write onto a list. Absolutely. And so once people have or are able to use tools to find that sense of self-awareness and get on the right side of neuroplasticity, do that first 50%, what are those next few steps? And I guess it's, I really want to clarify for people listening, there is real science behind this. It's not this kind of totally woo-woo concept of, I'm just going to sit here, close my eyes and imagine a dream beach house and all problems in life will be resolved. So the next three are focused attention, deliberate practice and accountability.

So once you have got raised awareness of how you want your life to feel or specific things that you want in it, the focused attention is about really just noticing when that's happening and it's not happening. So when you do get those moments of peace, really acknowledging them and appreciating them and maybe thinking about what happened today that allowed me that time that I don't necessarily get every day. And well, you specifically mentioned your rituals that you don't feel like doing them every day. What are the factors that are contributing to the days that you wake up and you feel you know really ready to do them and the days that you think I could really do without that today um and having young kids I'm sure that's one you know reason um but for each of us there'll be lots of different reasons and they could be

related to like the cycles and rhythms of the body they could be related to like the cycles and rhythms of the body, they could be related to the weather, obviously they could be related to external events that stress you out and stuff like that. So getting a much better idea of that all the factors that contribute to you being able to successfully move towards that state. Then deliberate practice is doing the things, doesn't have to be every day, but regularly that you want to be doing. So whether it's taking some time out to just be and do nothing, or doing your meditation, your breathing, your exercise, or it could be something much more tangible, like to do with changing career or to do with saving up for the dream house or whatever it is. But you're absolutely right. It cannot be sitting at home creating a fantasy of what you think is going to make you happy and not doing anything about moving towards that. And that's where the

accountability piece comes in, which, you know, it could be that you have a chat in the evening with your husband about whether you did your rituals or not. Or it could be that you have a therapist or a coach and you talk to them regularly about it, or that you write it in your journal, or that you have an app that helps you to keep up with those things. So those are the four steps that induce neuroplasticity, but they're still very practical. What's happening underneath that is to do with the reticular activating system of your brain and processes called selective filtering, selective attention and value tagging. So because we're bombarded with so much information every day, what you read in a newspaper today is the same amount of information

that somebody would have received in their lifetime 100 years ago. And even 100 years ago, we had excess information. So the way that you don't fill your clothes on your body all day, the brain filters stuff out that it doesn't think is vital to your survival. But we're not living in the cave hunting and gathering and, you know, trying to just make sure we don't die of hypothermia or an animal attack. We're trying to do a lot more than that with our brains these days. So we have to direct that filtering to be about thriving, not just surviving. And you can do that with a vision board, with a list of things that you want, with taking time every day to really think about how you want your life to feel,

so that it's front of mind and it doesn't get pushed down by all the to-do list and the you know really basic survival tasks and then so then you so that selective filtering and selective attention so then you notice things that help you get what you want and value tagging is how your brain prioritizes what's important both rationally to do with survival but also emotionally to do with thriving and getting your wishes and desires. So is it fair to say on the most basic level that you genuinely can rewire your brain and not that that's an easy task it's a very conscious task and obviously will take time but you can genuinely

rewire your brain to create a happier life absolutely and I'll take that one step further and say that if you're not consciously doing that your brain is being rewired all the time by everything that you see everything that you recall every person that you interact with and that can be for good or bad so if the happier life is the goal then you have to be focusing on happy little moments in your life acknowledging them spending time with positive people really working out how you deal with your natural reaction to not feeling happy and yeah consciously directing that because every second that you're not consciously directing that something else is. That was so powerful it almost feels trivial to respond to you but I'm going to try Tara and I'm

going to try by passing it straight back to you with your first piece of advice because I think it leads on so phenomenally well from that, which is that you can reinvent yourself via neuroplasticity, via these concepts that we're talking about. And almost if I can take that one step further, my understanding from what you've just said, is that it's almost not as simple as but as straightforward as either you shape your life, or the world's going to shape it for you. And the reality is the world's really difficult, you know, there's a lot of difficult things happening around us you know economic challenges you know humanitarian challenges environmental challenges just the daily stresses and strains of life and and so on and so forth plus a bombardment as you said of messaging and

kind of capitalism at its finest so it's unlikely to be kind of pure joy and happiness bombarding you as you run around the tube or the bus or the very, very busy streets of wherever you live. Yeah, I mean, you put that really well. I have to give that one back to you that that's reality. Like most news is bad. You know, if you look at the news or you just think about the state of the world and you put that together with our natural gearing to want to stay safe and avoid loss, it's much easier to go down the road of, I should be terribly unhappy because everything's bad. So to override that is really hard work. That's really interesting. And I wondered if you would,

Tara, be happy to share with us a recent example of sort of this concept in action, that you can reinvent yourself via neuroplasticity. So I believe that personal reinvention happens in two major ways. One is a really obvious big overhaul and one is a much less obvious to other people but a continual evolution of oneself that you're very aware of and maybe your closest people are aware of and I think I'm a bit of a hybrid because I have the examples of a massive career change around 2007-2008 and then moving away from putting all of my focus onto work and travel and opening my heart to love again after a divorce and, you know, getting married again. But I have a new one for you, which I've hardly spoken about. When I was at school, I was, because I wasn't good at art, I was told that I wasn't creative.

And that became such a strongly held belief for me for decades. Probably the longest lack of behavior change that I've had in my life was not being able to stop believing that I'm not creative and up until today if I've been on another podcast I've said things like but then I realized I created my own home and I'm creative when I cook and I've got loads of creative friends and I've built my business and but I know that deep down those things still made me feel like I'm not you know I'm not singing or dancing or painting or being an actress or whatever and again you know the pandemic and you know the personal things I've had to deal with in the last two years have for the first time led to me being able to say to myself now,

even like Ella, even after my book came out and was a bestseller in the UK and an award winner in the US and has 38 international translations, I would look in the mirror and say to myself, but you're not a writer. But now I've launched my own podcast and I've co-written a song and I feel truly creative the first time in my life congratulations I love that I think it's it's such a powerful example of just to circle you all the way back to what you said at the beginning as almost that sense of okay who could we be if we didn't have fear if we didn't have self-doubt if we didn't hold on to things that people have said to us potentially almost even flippantly at points in our lives. I know.

And then we heard them because we are probably naturally drawn to insecurities. And so we just build them in and we think, well, I could never be that. I still, we've got over 50 people that work at Delicious Cielo. I still can't be like, oh, yes, I own a business. And when people be like, you're an entrepreneur. I was like, no, I'm not. It's like, it's really interesting. It's just to kind of, yeah, to own things.

It's a fascinating journey. But I think, as you said, it's almost what happens when we let go of deep held beliefs. And what happens in the brain when you keep going outside your comfort zone, leaving imposter syndrome at the door, putting yourself out there? So the first, I would say, smaller piece of that is that you're giving yourself examples of success. So there's some sports psychology theory that says, if you're trying to achieve something, then see if you have any examples of having done something similar before. So for you, if you decided to start a new business, you could definitely say, well, I started a business from scratch and built it up to 50 people.

For somebody who hasn't done that before, or the first time, you know, when you first set up Deliciously Ella, you could look around for examples of another person who started up a similar business. And so you'd know it's possible. Then there is dealing with the negative self-talk. So doing the affirmations, stop saying, I'm not an entrepreneur or I'm embarrassed to say I'm an entrepreneur. And then finally, there are the physical conditions that set you up for success. So being adequately rested, well nourished, hydrated, oxygenated, all of that kind of thing. But what's actually happening in the brain on a sort of longer term scale, that's really important in terms of your whole life, also, what you were talking about before,

which is being more in a state of happiness, is both that it's natural for us with our ancient wiring to be geared for loss avoidance rather than reward gain. And also that when we are in fear of loss, we have the stress hormone cortisol circulating in our blood through our brain and our body. When we are having that moment of, I mean, the ultimate one really is being in love. You know that feeling when you're in love, you think you can conquer the world. Suddenly, like everything's in soft focus. There's like some beautiful soundtrack to everything. And we get smaller examples of that when we get a work success or, you know, have a lovely time with our friends or whatever it is. And in those moments, the brain is flourishing with hormones like dopamine and oxytocin, which are reward, bonding, warmth, trust.

So when the proportion of those are higher in our blood that's circulating through the brain and the body than cortisol, we're much more likely to lower our guard, take healthy risks. And the more you can push yourself into that state rather than the fear state, the more likely you are to do things that are going to manifest what you want in your life, giving yourself exponential examples of if I do this, I can get that. And going from that point of, okay, now what about that dream beach house, which seemed like not really ever possible. You're never going to do that when you're in a fear state when you're thinking well if I say that then I could get sacked or if I do that then my partner might leave me you're

never going to go from that state to the dream house or the dream business or whatever it is so it's about keeping yourself in the love trust mode of the brain more of the time than the fear loss mode of the brain. So I think that actually moves us on really nicely to your second piece of advice, this sense of flipping your mindset. And it's all about gratitude and when manifesting, give gratitude as if the things have already come true. And I love that you focus so much on this I remember when I was so back it would have been kind of 2012 2013 when after I'd been very ill and I was I was really struggling and mentally and physically and I was just so lost and I read this book and I I remember the title we can put in the show notes but it but it was all about gratitude. And it was a woman's diary, effectively.

I think she was a journalist in New York. And basically, she'd reached a point in her life where she was fundamentally miserable. Her marriage wasn't great. I can't remember how old her children were, but she sort of felt sucked up in the busyness of motherhood and just was drained. Everything felt lackluster. And nothing catastrophic had happened, but everything was subpar, if we just want to give it an easy name, which I think is something that everyone can relate to feeling just stuck effectively.

And she started gratitude-less. And she started every single day writing down what she was grateful for. And it was just her story through this very simple premise, but it was incredibly powerful because it was all about the fact that it just became easier, and she just noticed all these small shifts happening in her life because she was looking for the positives. She had a more positive conversation with her partner and her children and her colleague, et cetera, because her mind started working like that and how much

easier it got and I was so moved by it and it's just been a very constant in my life ever since one of those penny dropping moments and I'm very passionate about gratitude in a nutshell effectively so tell us about it. Yeah so I've been on a real evolution with it as well and I want to bring in some of my newest insights to you today so I started Gratitude List shortly after I started journaling so I would say around the time I got divorced 2007-2008-9 kind of thing and I started it by doing 10 things I'm grateful for and after a while I noticed that they were all really external things So it was friends, family, travel, freedom, you know, kind of the ability to live my life and work the way I did and stuff. And it also got a bit repetitive. So I just started thinking, okay, what else can I put on it? And that's

when it went, this was my first evolution, was it went from being outer things to inner things. And I started recording things like my resilience, my creativity, my vulnerability, my ability to ask for help and that really served me in difficult times because they were much more front of mind so when I needed help or I needed to like think creatively out of a problem or be able to access resilience and know that I had lots of it, that was so, so helpful. And so I'll come on to the fourth stage, but I will say that I've been through a third stage where things were so bad, Ella, that the only things I said on my gratitude list were I'm alive and I don't have a disease. There was a long time that I went through that and then how I sort of moved on to the next

evolution was that I have this formula for and it's under manifestation but it's more to do with visualization and vision boards or what I call action boards which is make the board look at it every day visualize it becoming true and then just very recently I've added in this fourth step which is because normally it would be you know feel the feeling of it being true and kind of really experience that in all of your modalities but I decided to make it give gratitude that it's true so feel like what would it be like if it's true and you were saying oh my goodness thank you so much or I'm so grateful that this happened like that I wrote a song and it's being released on Spotify so spending a lot more time thinking about

the day that that song's going to come out and everyone's going to hear it and how just I know the things that people will say to me and how amazing that will feel and how many times in that first day when my friends write to me and say oh my goodness Tara it's amazing that I'll be saying thank you so much thank you so much thank you so much and just that's moving my brain from fear and loss to love and trust and therefore it's creating the culture medium for me to move on to my next manifestation. And do you think fear and the kind of imposter syndrome are the biggest things that hold us back there? Not from being able to practice gratitudes.

And I've got a question why people might not want to do that as well. I'm going to ask it as just so we don't lose it, which is a sense of this is pointless. This is self-indulgent. Because it can't become true. This is just a waste of five minutes. And why that's not the case, because I think that's important from a neuroscientist perspective. But on that imposter syndrome, I think that's also, it's almost that terrifying sense of putting yourself out there

because if you wish for something and it doesn't happen, it's almost much more devastating than if you, as you were saying, it's that sense of living in fear, but it's protective because if you don't think it's going to happen you don't lose it yeah I mean I mean I know what you mean and I would temper what I've said by saying it can't be some crazy unrealistic thing you know it's got to be because I believe you have to take action towards it has to be something that you at least feel there's one tiny thing you could do today to move yourself towards it. But if you think about a spectrum of people in terms of their mindset, then there are people who have the same skills, capabilities, you know,

physical attributes, whatever it is. And some of them will say, well, there's no point saying that because it's not going to happen. And some of them will do the gratitude. And who do you think is more likely to achieve the thing? You know, it's like that phrase, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're probably right. So presumably the people you spend time with are going to have a massive impact on this. Because if you're surrounded by the, no, you can't, this is impossible, let's all moan about all the bad things in the world and just to caveat that with we could all do that every single day there's always bad things that have happened but if you're surrounded by that all the time it's been very hard to break

out of it it is and you know I've I've sort of noticed recently that I luckily have a lot of people around me saying you're strong you're're resilient, you've got resolve. But there are always a few that don't say that. And it's because they want to commiserate with you. It comes from a place of love. But I've been very clear with people now. I do not want my friends to feel sorry for me or give me sympathy or even empathy. I want you to repeatedly tell me I'm strong. can get through this I'll be fine you'll be there and I've become much more you know really strict about saying that and not getting sucked into that oh Tara that's so terrible because I know what that's going to do to my brain I don't want that I'm perfectly capable of doing that my you know myself with my own in my own time of going down

that road and and that is I think we've really come back to the reason why gratitude is important because you are changing the focus from that natural negative spiral that we can all get into to focusing on the positives realizing that even in tough times there are opportunities that you have the skills within yourself to navigate things that would have felt impossible before. And that when you spread positivity and gratitude, you attract it around you, you help other people. And then when you need it, they help you. I mean, that's not a reason to go in action. I don't really know what is.

Tara, you said something there that I think is so important to pick up on and I'm also interested in it because I have been talking a little bit about this just my own personal reflections on it on on Instagram recently and I see messages from people all the time saying well it's really easy for you to say x or it's really easy for you to say y and I don't think that's just reflective of me. I think we see this a lot in the world, which is that, you know, it's easy to say, change your life when things are good. I mean, I think the interesting thing is we never actually know what's going on in people's lives. Certainly that was one of the messages I was reading. I was like, if only you knew what had actually happened today, this has been probably potentially the worst day

we've ever had at Deliciously Ella. But you know, not things you can talk about Instagram at that point. And all is okay now, but it was precarious. But I think it's really interesting. And I wanted to ask you about that, because I think it's so easy to say, well, it's easy for you, or it's easy for you. And almost it implies that like, it can only be done when everything is good and that bad things won't happen and it's not about that is that right? I mean there is an argument for saying make hay whilst the sun shines and when you are feeling motivated and you've got momentum with some of your manifestations that probably is the best time to like go for the next big one. On the other side of the coin, I would say that what I really saw during the pandemic was that the 10 or 15 or 20 years of mindfulness and gratitude and resilience work

that I had done before that served me when I needed it. And that if I had suddenly started trying to do all of those things because we were in lockdown and we were afraid and we were isolated, me when I needed it. And that if I had suddenly started trying to do all of those things, because we're in lockdown, and we were afraid, and we, you know, we're isolated, that's no way it would have been as good as it was, because I'd already cultivated those habits. But in terms of manifestation, I personally find that it does go in cycles. And there are times where I'm like, oh, my goodness, be careful what you wish for, because this is like insane what's happening beyond my wildest expectations and times that months and months go by and nothing happens. But that's when you have to keep the motivation and the self-belief going so that,

you know, you don't give up and you get to the point where it does change again, because we'll all have examples of that going up and down and changing. So, you know, like you said, you can be in that day that it was like the worst, most precarious day at Deliciously Ella. And then you can sit here today and say, all is fine. And we all have many examples of that. So I think it's just important to not be too black and white about that. And of course, a really important message is that it is very easy to look at some people and say, well, they can do manifestation because they've got the luxury of resources and time. But I always say, everybody could make their life a little bit better. And there are very small,

not time consuming things that you can do to start building up, you know, the building blocks. And when you see the results of that, you want to put more time aside for doing the kinds of things that allow that to happen. And, you know, it really is difficult because there are some absolutely horrible things going on in the world at the moment. And I'm not suggesting in any way that people living in a war-torn country should be manifesting a beach house. But if you look at the different, you know, look at the examples of Viktor Frankl and Nelson Mandela, who've gone through some of the worst examples of what we know in humanity, they have used the power of their mind to become the best version of themselves, despite that ordeal. And I think there's a massive lesson there. You know, I love the quote from Mandela, which is, when I left prison, I knew that if I held on to bitterness and hatred, I'd still be in prison. That's what I mean when I say

use manifestation to make your life better. It's free yourself from the prison of limitation and negativity. And that means different things for different people. And it still has a place even when things are difficult. As you said, it's not to go to the extremities, obviously, of the kind of most difficult things, you know, being in a war-torn country. But even when life is still difficult, difficult things are happening around you personally, professionally, etc.,

it still has an important place. What I've learned, and, you know, it's taken me decades to learn this, is that, in a way, and you know it's taken me decades to learn this is that in a way and you probably have to have enough personal experience of good times and bad times and your own journey with manifestation and neuroplasticity it is an opportunity for the worst time in your life to help you to embark on something that you wouldn't have if that didn't happen and and possibly give you a much better outcome than if you'd stayed on the path that you were on.

That's really interesting. And I guess it does lead us on to that third point, this idea of not trying to control everything around you and leave a bit of space for life to unfold and magic to happen. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's

b-o-b at l-i-b-s-y-n dot com. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought it up like that because I think the message I feel like I've given so far is like take control of your destiny and if you don't then there's a lot of factors that can impact you. But as I've been on that journey myself, what I have noticed is that I'll be doing my manifestations, something amazing will happen. And then something that I didn't even think of might happen as well. And that got me to thinking, well, am I limiting myself by what I think is possible in my brain? And if I'm doing that, are other people doing that? And that's when I started, when I do my action boards every year, leaving more space on them, literally empty space.

And I've actually been doing that for a long time, but I think my intention, and intention is very important in the brain. My intention previously was about what we were talking about earlier, which was having space in your life, like having some time to be rather than always doing. It was more about that. I just want some space in my life. As my manifestation started to like go exponential, that's when it really hit me that if I'm choosing all the imagery that goes onto my board, I might might consult with like my nearest and dearest but they would pretty much know what I want and kind of probably be quite

similar in their thinking to me then am I missing out on things that could happen for me that I haven't thought of yet like I've never put be a songwriter on one of my vision boards but it's a complete dream come true um so that's when I started leaving space and saying intentionally this is for something actually it wasn't just space two years ago I put a unicorn on my action board and it was representing something magical that I can't get my own head around I wouldn't you know I wouldn't be able to understand like how it could exist um so and did it manifest um I'm still trying to work out what the unicorn is maybe it's the song maybe it's the song yeah I think that's incredibly inspiring and I so appreciate how are you being so honest about everything and I think it's really

powerful that this so much of this started feeling it's such a good example for people almost to conclude with you started doing a lot of this while you're going divorced while you're going through a difficult time so even if you're in a tricky place don't feel you can't start too I mean that's actually a really good point to raise, which is that my biggest reinventions were around, you know, shortly after like crises, basically. But one of my kind of ambitions for people is that they shouldn't have to go through a crisis to do that. So that's why after doing it myself, I wrote the book and, you know, now I've launched the podcast and stuff. And I think, you know, thank you for saying that I've been honest and sharing. What I've really enjoyed about today is that the last time

we did the podcast, it was very much about the book. And now I feel like it's, my message is much more about my personal experience as a human, not as a scientist or a doctor. And so I really want to say that I believe so much, not because of research or theory or teaching, but because of personal experience, that using neuroplasticity and hanging off that sort of skeleton, as it were, tools like gratitude, building your resilience, practicing manifestation, and using all of those to create those cellular changes. And if we come full circle in your body in your thinking in your emotions in your spirit you can literally reinvent yourself and change your life at any age I was teased on a podcast recently about what age I am but believe me it's a later

age than most people would think you could change your life so I'd much rather be out there as an example of just a person who's navigated like quite a lot of ups and downs in their life and used all of these things to move forward positively and see opportunities and be grateful for everything than be like a medical doctor and a neuroscientist who lectures at a university and wrote a book about it and that's probably a huge part of my reinvention yeah I do believe that I think people are inspired by people and I think you can listen and hear you know what horror did it or x person did or x person did it I can do it too and I think it's really powerful to share from that place so I totally agree and just so appreciate your time today it's been yeah I'm certainly incredibly inspired and I'm sure everyone listening is oh thank you so much

Ella I loved talking to Tara I genuinely had goosebumps at that bit where she was saying effectively either you control your life or your life controls you and I'm just continuously shocked by the power of the mind we can be anything we want to be mostly if we can just genuinely put our mind to it I think that it's such a powerful takeaway and something that I certainly am seeing the repercussions of in my own life having come back to it through Wellness Unpacked but it is now time for Fact or Fad where every week Dr Gemma Newman and I put to the test various different wellness trends that you might have seen here or there and find out whether they have any basis in fact or if they're a passing fad and this week we're going to be

looking at nature bathing the practice of being quiet and calm among nature which let's be honest sounds like heaven it is absolutely relaxing I think we could all attest to that but does it have any proven effect on our mental health here's what Tara had to say on it during the lockdowns obviously we all had to like make more effort to make sure that we did that and I actually did do barefoot walking and even tree hugging I will admit. But at the same time, and probably not a coincidence because we were all locked up, some really compelling evidence came out about the importance of time spent in nature.

And if you think about it, when we lived in the cave, which is what our brains are still really wired from that time, we walked outside barefoot, we sat around the fire, we looked at the stars in the sky at night. We don't do those things naturally now and that's why we do have to make time for spending time in nature and there's proper studies that show that your blood pressure goes down, your heart rate goes down, health benefits, longevity benefits, everything. So yes, get outside. So is it a fact as Tara thinks? Is it a fad? Let's find out what the plant power doctor, Dr. Gemma Newman thinks. So I think what's lovely about our topic today is this is a trend that's so valuable for people, free for the most part. And I'm hoping you're going to have some good information on it, but I have a feeling that it's going to come out trumps, which is spending time in nature.

There's obviously that specific trend at the moment of forest bathing. So forest bathing has got a million hashtags, but nature 740 million, which I think is just indicative of how much we as human beings are clearly drawn to the natural world. Yeah, we are wired to want to be outside. And what's interesting is I think a lot of the things in our modern world push us against that. You know, the time that we spend on our computers, our laptops, the time that we spend in the office, the time that we spend in urban environments and also you know with our smartphones like there's those kind of immediate dopamine rush that you get from scrolling and looking at your phone rather

than even just going outside for five minutes and it's quite difficult because our bodies kind of know it's good for us our minds know it's good for us but there are lots of things that get in the way so that's why I'm really excited about this trend and some of the burgeoning research around it. Do you feel personally that you benefit from being out in nature? Is it something that you're kind of conscious of? 100% and I notice it makes the world of difference and ahead of conversation, I've just been obviously trying to have that marked conscious effort to do it. And for me, that often revolves around walking our dog. And because that often is what gets me out for a kind of 45 minute, hour long walk.

Almost nothing has the same effect as that. It is so calming. It's so grounding. I think it's this sense of perspective that it gives you because I think when the world that we live in, I'm sure a lot of our listeners can relate, you know, you get up if you've got children, you're hurrying to get them out the door and get everyone fed and get on whatever transport you get to and you sit in the office all day. You rush home and you rush to this and you rush to that. And suddenly the little stresses stresses maybe at work or being five minutes late for school or the bus being delayed or whatever it is just feel like

they mount and they mount and they mount and for me whenever I get outside and I'm in nature it just gives me this instant sense of perspective and actually that's what matters that's always there that doesn't go away and I think that in the busyness and the rush, especially in an urban environment, you can lose that quite quickly. You can. And it's nice that you say that because I think also spending time in nature is a way of appreciating nature in general and being more mindful of wanting to preserve nature. And part of, I guess, what really the plant-based mission is all about as well so it's quite a nice thing that brings everything together and there are some data to suggest it's really good for us too so Harvard did some really interesting research based on the nurse's health study in the US

they had over 100,000 participants and they showed that those who lived in green spaces had a 12% lower mortality rate when they lived in the greenest areas compared to those that lived in the most urban areas. And they obviously attempted to adjust for socioeconomic factors as well, because we know sometimes it's actually really hard to find a forest to bathe in or a beach to go to if you don't live in an area where that's easy. But the hope I have from some of these studies is that you don't need to go to these most beautiful picturesque places. You can still get benefits even just from going to your local park or going to the garden or even having something that looks like nature to look at can actually have some benefits.

And there was an interesting study on patients who are in hospitals and those who had a hospital window that enabled them to look out onto a green space had reduced recovery times, reduced need for medications and a more positive outlook on their hospital stay overall compared to those that didn't. So you know even having a view of nature can have an impact if you haven't necessarily got access to a beautiful outdoor space. That's very reassuring so you don't necessarily need to do the full forest bathing just getting outside into green space can make a big difference. yeah and to ask ourselves why there are so many potential benefits and i think the forest bathing concept is brilliant

it comes from japan and there are some a couple of studies from japan talking about the health benefits of that which i find absolutely fascinating there's one study on men who had a two-hour walk in the forest over two days, and they had a 50% spike in their natural killer cells, which are the beneficial cells that help support the immune function. And in women, they were forest bathing for four hours, and they had a 40% spike in some of these protective white blood cells. So it definitely can have a positive impact on our immune function as to why i'm not sure but it could be something to do with the phytoncides that are released which are

essentially sort of antimicrobial organic compounds released from plants to protect them from germs and then you know when when we're exposed to them they do tend to support our immune function so that might be something to do with it it may be because it has an association with reduced risk of depression as well there was a study that showed that just spending 90 minutes a day in nature versus an urban environment remarkably improved brain function so what the researchers did was they looked at physiological markers like blood pressure, which actually could be potentially improved by being in nature as well. But in this study, those who walked for 90 minutes in an urban environment had the same physiological markers as those that walked in nature.

But the brain scan showed that there was less activity in the areas of the brain responsible for rumination, excess rumination, which is a risk factor for depression. So it does potentially lift your mood to be able to go out and about and spend time in natural spaces. And it could be the sun as well. Sun helps us to make vitamin D, which is good for our mood, good for our bone health, serotonin production in the body, serotonin release, which is obviously helpful for our mood, helps to regulate our circadian rhythms, spending time outside, even just looking up at the sky, even if it's a cloudy day or a rainy day, can help set that circadian rhythm, help the serotonin and then melatonin release later in the day. So all of these things have potential

benefits and you mentioned just getting that extra perspective as well just going outside for extra perspective is actually less strain on our eyes if we look at things that are further away if we're looking at things that are you know sort of a long distance from us like trees in the distance rather than looking things closer up it's less eye strain as well and the things that we're looking at the fractals that surround us and fractals are essentially recurring patterns that tend to only happen in nature so branches of a tree clouds snowflakes riverslines, all these things are soothing for our physiology and if you combine them then yeah it really does pack a punch. And is there any kind of recommendation of how much time we need to be spending in nature or how often we need to be getting out there to be able to take

advantage of some of these benefits? There isn't any specific guidance on it. We do have exercise guidance, as you know, but in terms of guidance around nature, we haven't quite got there. But there was a meta-analysis by the University of East Anglia that showed definite benefits in terms of reduced risk of chronic disease, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stress, and blood pressure markers from spending time in nature over and above the effect of exercise so I can't tell you well you must spend 20 minutes in nature every day and you will get this benefit xyz but I can say there are so many reasons why it could be beneficial and there are so many studies that show it is you just have to find a routine that

works for you. Dan Buechner who we spoke to a few weeks ago his work on the blue zones and what people do there really resonated and it's just really stuck with me and this sense that people that they don't go indoors and just run on a treadmill for 45 minutes they are in their garden they're moving around they're walking to their friend's house and I think it's just again it's just such a nice reminder of the fact that health and well-being and wellness can just be 45 minute walk with your friend on the weekend outside meet in a park or some kind of green space and that that can have a profound impact on your health the connection with somebody else as you said that time in nature

goes above and beyond the effect of also the exercise element of taking a walk with someone so you could get much deeper benefits let's be honest probably enjoy it more than 45 minutes on a treadmill but it's not what we necessarily classify as health and wellness and I think shifting that is so important it is and as you say there are so many additional benefits in terms of connecting with people, you know looking at the fractals in nature, smelling those phytoncides, looking at something that is less of a strain on your eye, enjoying regulating your circadian rhythm, enjoying spending time with your dog. I mean I've got a dog and she gets me outside too so I think it's yeah it has myriad potential benefits and yeah I would

encourage everybody to get out there and hopefully maybe even combine their exercise with being outside as a way of of getting the best of both so fact or fad fact it sounds like a hundred percent no-brainer but just no clear um prescription of exactly much you need. Just get what you can, when you can. A green prescription and then you decide how much and how. I love that. A green prescription for everyone listening. And that is the end of the show. Thank you for listening and for coming on this journey

to feeling better in yourself with me I am feeling so inspired after the last whole series but particularly the last few episodes on changing our mindset and aligning with our values and I just cannot tell you the repercussions I'm seeing myself so I hope you are feeling that too if you get in touch. I'd love to hear from you on social media or over email at Deliciously Ella, podcast at deliciouslyella.com. Let us know if there's anything else you want us to talk about. Is there a trend you want us to explore? Next week, I'm going to be joined by Farrah Storr. And then in fact or fad, we're going to be looking at protein powder, something lots of you asked us about. So I will see you back here next week.

Thank you for listening. Don't forget, we've got the manifestation mantras and meditations on our app. Feel better if you want to delve deeper into this. And just massive thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. And thank you to Curly Media, who are our partners in this podcast production. or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's b-o-b at l-i-b-s-y-n dot com.