How to change your brain to get what you want: Tara Swart Bieber, M.D. | mbg Podcast

it's maybe not a time for people to put too much pressure on themselves and you know try to create these really big goals and actually I'm quite a fan of picking two or three really small habits to change each quarter of the year and I found that when I did that a few years ago at the end of the year I had 10 new little habits that were just completely things that I did without you know thinking about it and so you're just making me think as I'm speaking out loud that maybe my action board for 2023 is about smaller things and more specific things whereas mine tend to be quite very metaphorical very kind of big picture maybe it's okay to say like you know if these two or three really good things happen next year then I would feel like I'm getting back to being more abundant being able to manifest more foreign [Music] for many manifesting has lost its meaning but with the New Year comes new goals and Dr Tara swart Bieber teaches us how to actually change our brain chemistry to achieve what we want this year in 2023 now this isn't the type of manifesting you're used to hearing about I promise you that Tara welcome Jason thank you so much for having me this is a complete dream I've manifested being on your podcast I love it we're gonna get to the bottom of manifestation in a moment but it is such an honor to have you I really enjoyed reading you on my buddy green so great to finally have you and you know one of the things I thought was so fascinating about you is your background you are not the likely candidate to write a book which touches on the Law of Attraction given all of your credentials so let's start there can you talk a bit about your background and the work you do okay yeah so I'm an Oxford University trained medical doctor so first reason you think I wouldn't write about manifestation um I have a PhD in neuroscience and I worked as a psychiatrist for seven years in the NHS in the UK and then I changed career and became an executive advisor to people in financial services this was around 2008 so there were a lot of really stressed people in financial services so my background as a psychiatrist kind of flowed into that then Neuroscience became more of a kind of buzz Topic in business and Leadership so I started speaking and then I started writing some books the third one is the source um which merges science and spirituality I'm also faculty at MIT Sloan um and I'm host of the podcast reinvent yourself with Dr Tara which is all about neuroplasticity stories of neuroblasticity so you are so credentialed in all the right places and which is the feed in and of itself but you know segwaying to the book you wrote called The Source the secrets of the universe the science the science of the brain which largely is about manifestation The Law of Attraction and the science there walk us through the Journey because it is not the traditional we have a lot of great credentialed phds and MDS in the show but they end up not writing books about the law of attraction but you did so walk us through that yeah so I guess it goes all the way back to the fact that I was brought up in London but by parents who had emigrated from India and so always had spiritual aspects in my life as a child like they did yoga and meditation we had incense in the house we ate in an ayurvedic way but I was going to school in England and I went to medical school and learned Western medicine and so for a long time I kept those things separate and I think I was on a personal journey of trying to integrate science and spirituality rather than keep them separate and then I got this amazing opportunity to be the world's first neuroscientist in Residence at a luxury hotel in London and that got a lot of press so I was approached by penguin Random House and they said we have separate books on diet on exercise on mindfulness except sleep and we think as a neuroscientist you can write one book that kind of merges all of that and without even thinking about it I just said I could do that but I've also have this idea about writing about the cognitive science behind visualization vision boards manifestation and the laws of attraction and they just loved the idea so I wrote the book every weekend for a year and that was a great part of my journey of integrating those things doing the research finding out what science could explain the laws of attraction but then actually it was the response to the book that I think really hit me emotionally that how much people wanted a very clear pragmatic explanation of what you have to do with your brain and your thinking and your feeling and your action to bring the things that you want into your life so let's go there what what does the science say about manifestation visualization the law of attraction I think the secret which was you know runaway bestsellers so sold millions and millions of copies was thin if you will this handy little book you could read within 45 minutes and the criticism if you will was this is oversimplified uh it's missing a lot but in your book in your approach it is not thin it is scientifically driven so walk us through the science so I'll start with visualization um and vision boards I kind of the science behind them is is quite similar so it's basically about three processes that happen in the brain and they are selective filtering selective attention and value tagging so basically we're bombarded with so much information and this has been the case for a long time but if you read a copy of the New York Times today you would receive as much information from that one newspaper as somebody would in their entire lifetime 100 years ago and even then they were overly bombarded with information so the brain has a natural um filtering mechanism which is that you don't have need to notice things that aren't really relevant to your survival so for example you don't notice your clothes on your body all day um so we need to direct that filtering system otherwise in a way we're still wired just to survive and reproduce so things that will help us to thrive in the modern world may not necessarily be filtered in unless we're presenting visual images to our brain on a daily basis or sitting down and closing our eyes and you know visualizing the things that we want in our life or a certain outcome if we do those practices then the next process comes in which is selective attention which is that you notice the things that you're visualizing or you have on your vision board it's like when you buy a new car and then you suddenly see it everywhere um so it's basically priming your brain to notice opportunities that will take you closer to your goals and then value tagging is the brain's system of putting things in order of importance and it does this in two ways it does it in a cold or logical way under warm or emotional way so The Logical things are basically the survival you know the basics that we need to survive like roof over our head food on the table um and the warmer things are the ones that we might choose to put on our vision board so they're the things you know our dreams our desires goals that show that we're thriving rather than just kind of you know surviving so by repeatedly exposing your brain to these images you're priming it to not just notice but also grasp the opportunities that will take you closer to what you want and that's why I call vision boards action boards because I don't believe that you can create this fantasy image and sit at home and wait for it to come true I believe that you need to be out there networking dating whatever it is um to get the things that you want and so if that's visualization can you segue to manifestation and Law of Attraction they're all somewhat related yeah so so there's an overlap but so I think the the big difference between the way that I've explained it with science is that I've used cognitive science which is basically Psychology and Neuroscience rather than the quantum science that had been used to explain things like manifestation in the laws of attraction before and one of the things I like about that and the feedback that I got that people liked about it was that if you're thinking about the science that explains how your brain works and what you're basically telling yourself is that you are in control of making these things happen if it's the universe and vibrations and Quantum science then you have less agency over that so taking it back to inside your skull um and understanding how that works is I I just think much more empowering and so in the last 25 years or so we have had much more sophisticated brain scanning technology which shows how the brain works prior to that we really understood a lot of how the brain works from seeing what happens when it goes wrong so if somebody has a stroke or a brain tumor or a brain injury once we could scan healthy brains we started to learn a lot more about this concept of neuroplasticity which is that the brain grows and changes throughout life now you've got two little girls so you will know that from zero to two they went from being completely vulnerable and helpless to walking talking being able to control their bladder and bowels and you know maybe even speaking several languages and having an opinion so it's a massive burst of neuroplasticity and we see that you know very visibly in young children um around the teenage years there's some pruning of the brain to sophisticate it for adulthood for sexual behavior emotional and social interaction and that is quite an active process till we're about 25. we used to think it stopped when we physically stopped stopped growing around the age of 18. but the really interesting area for us in manifestation and the laws of attraction is that from 25 to 65 you can do things that keeps your brain more plastic or flexible and you can change the ways that you think feel and act so to me neuroplasticity underlies manifestation and it's a four-step process it starts with raised awareness so you need to know what you want to bring into your life or how you want your life to look or feel um then it's focused attention which is noticing maybe you know negative thinking or certain behaviors or relationship patterns that are holding you back from getting what you want and also noticing opportunities to get the things that you want but really just building up your database of okay that doesn't work for me when I do this then you know good things come into my life the third part is deliberate practice so that is going out there and doing the things that you need to to manifest the things that you want into your life gotta do the work got to do the work totally um and the fourth part isn't really like a step in the process but it's accountability because it's very easy to start particularly a new year and say okay these are all my resolutions and new things that I'm going to do and then for most of us that motivation doesn't you know remain partly from the Neuroscience that's because we tend to pick goals that are too big and it's better to break them down into bite-sized chunks and that's the same for manifestation take small steps towards the things that you want so if there are some things that are more in your control like getting fit and healthy then start doing that and then if there's something that's less in your control like getting married or having a baby then give that a bit longer but know that you are changing your brain by changing your behaviors and you know you have some form of accountability whether it's a vision board whether it's your partner whether it's a therapist so this is going to air in early 23 and it's safe to say that most people are thinking about happiness health and abundance and as you pointed out some of these things are out of our control potentially whether that's finding a a soul mate or a partner whereas our health if I want to achieve a certain weight or a certain physique in our control so can you walk us through well let's use the the the physique as our example what that would look like in terms of thinking feeling and acting do I start with a picture of what I want to look like or a certain uh piece of clothing that I want to fit in walk us through that process if you just focus on physique yeah so I mean I would regularly have a picture of somebody doing yoga who's got you know a toned body on on my action board um that's very obvious it doesn't have to be that obvious like you said if if a piece of clothing represents to you that I can fit into that piece of clothing or that's the kind of clothing that fit healthy people wear then they're basically the images can be metaphorical or literal or anywhere in between so you could either have find an image of exactly what you want to look like or you could have something that represents to you that you've achieved that Peak you know physique that you want um and so there's there's a few steps to that as well which is that you find the correct image that really speaks to you you look at it every day you act on the basis that it has already come true or that it's definitely going to become true and you give gratitude for that fact so this shifts your brain from a fear or shame state where you think maybe you can't achieve that goal to a state of love and trust and so rather than having the stress hormone cortisol directing the blood flow around your brain you have oxytocin the bonding hormone flourishing in your brain and that makes you much more likely to maybe take some risks that you wouldn't healthy risks that you might not have to be more trusting to really believe that this you know can come true and that's the state from which you have to manifest if there's any doubt or or fear or shame you're much less likely to manifest because you mentioned abundance already but it's basically the same as saying you need to be in an abundant mindset rather than a scarcity mindset and I'm just explaining it with the science and the actual neurotransmitters so I love the distinction action over visualization and I think you know I do let's segue to abundance on that note you know there is the I think that the stereotype or or the criticism of the law of attraction is I'm gonna visualize something I'm gonna put a picture of a dream physique or a dream home on my refrigerator and then I'm just going to lay on the couch and I'm going to think about it all day I'm not going to take action and I think what's so interesting is you explain what's happening in the brain when we actually take action and you mentioned thinking feeling and acting how important is each step of the thinking feeling and acting and I'm going to segue to abundance from there but thinking feeling and acting walk us through those three like what's going on in that there so actually they are very connected to abundance because so you know an abundant mindset is one where you feel that you are deserving of the things that you have asked for and that it's okay to go out there and do things that are likely to bring that into your life when you have a scarcity mindset you're much more likely to be thinking negatively thinking it won't come true so the first step is actually to dig below any repeated negative thought patterns and find out what it is that you believe that would be producing that thought pattern and usually this comes down to things like lack of worthiness or self-esteem or or deservingness or you know feeling how people will judge you if you ask for too much so so we really need to First dig down to the feeling because if you don't do that first you can't change your thinking and then you can't change how you behave so that's part of raised awareness as well which is that self-knowledge why have I not you know been able to manifest the things that I want what are the feelings or behavior patterns that you know keep blocking me from getting that and then once you understand that you create a mantra that is the opposite statement of this um low self-worth belief basically and every time you have negative thoughts you replace it with that Mantra so you're you know you're kind of slowly pushing your brain from scarcity towards abundance more of the time once you have like you have more abundance in your thinking you're more likely to do some of the things that might get you what you want and but he's basically uncertainty is the biggest threat to the brain so actually going for that job interview is never as bad as you think it's going to be actually going on that date well I was going to say it's never as bad as you think it's going to be it could be but you know the sort of fear of taking that first step is often so often what holds us back from action and so I I call it doing little experiments I think okay that's something I don't know how that's going to go but I'll take a you know like a low risk version of whatever it is I want to try and go and try it and just see how it works out and then I'll build up my confidence and I'll try harder and harder things so it's really about digging down to the belief that you must hold to have certain thoughts changing your thought patterns by using mantras or positive affirmations and then doing experiments in terms of action you know small low risk things that just help you to build up to the things that you actually really need to do to get what you want and so what walk us through abundance in terms of because I think it's a lot more straightforward with Fitness I think it's a little bit less straightforward when you talk about things whether it's a hybrid of there's a certain element that is in one's control and then part of it is not in one's control it will stay at abundance I think many people have the dream home scenario where they're thumbing through a magazine or a Pinterest board or Instagram and they bookmark or they put in their fridge this amazing home that someday they want to live in so walk us through that scenario and how we should properly set ourselves up for Success so there's a few angles I could take on that so I'll start with one that's just very clear which is about alignment and authenticity so that dream home has to resonate for you so strongly that it resonates in your head which is your logic so that's probably really about being realistic um you know if so it has to be a house currently and we can always build from this but it has to be a house that you feel that with your salary or you know whatever however you have funds coming in that it is achievable if you put you know a 50 million dollar house in the Hamptons on your vision board and you're not you know working in a business where that's likely to be an amount of money that you will ever get then what all you'll do is reinforce to your brain that I put an image somewhere and it didn't come true but if you can make it something that could make sense to you logically that's the first part then emotionally it has to be I call it magnetic desire so it has to be something that you feel so drawn towards emotionally that you will be able to maintain your motivation even if at points it looks like it's not going to happen and then finally it's in your gut which is that with your intuition you feel very strongly that this is going to come true um so those have to align for a start and then I mean you know I'll go back to what I said repeatedly look at that image believe that it's going to come true give gratitude that it's going to come true so then you know you're keeping your brain in that abundant sort of love and Trust state and then you have to be you know out there looking at how looking online going to estate agents um telling people that that's you know what the kind of place that you're looking for and putting together whatever financial plan is going to have to support that I think it's so interesting that you're touching on practicality I I think that that is as I think about the law of attraction a lot of other books written about the law of attraction manifestation visualization practical practicality doesn't seem to be part of the narrative and I love the example you used we were thinking about a 50 million dollar house in the Hamptons and that's just not the car that's not in the cards for most people um you probably shouldn't focus on that and it segues straight to to to mindset uh in terms of setting yourself up for failure and then very easy to quickly find yourself in a scarcity of mindset exactly so what you don't want to do is put something so Fantastical that all you will do is reinforce to your brain that it didn't come true um I actually have a friend who I don't think it's 50 million but has a very nice house in the Hamptons and had said that she had put that on her vision board you know decades ago and there are a lot of comments in response to this which we're like yeah I'd love a house in the Hamptons too but I know how much hard work that person put into making that dream come true um and you know worked in an industry where the financial situation could could make that possible so um yeah just that kind of tone of like oh we'd all like a million dollars or we'd all like a house in the Hamptons that's not really the approach to take um to manifesting sort of you know realistic things that you can actually have in you know exert the influence of your brain over so is it safe to say the disconnect with the law of attraction is most commonly found in the practicality of deciding on what it is you'd like to achieve how practical that is and then two the action that this actually requires work I would say those two things and then a further third thing so I just I want to go back and say that whilst you were speaking I was thinking you know that as as a scientist and a doctor and a professor at MIT Sloan that practicality has to be part of it for me I I could not read a book that would say you can dream up this image and then not do anything and it will come true that just does not resonate for me at all and and it was very gratifying to see that that people who liked my book that part was what didn't resonate for them too so you're absolutely right in the two points that you've raised but there's also something called immunity to change oh you know you could just say a conflicted idea of what you actually want so I'll use a different example to the ones that we've used so far so this is an example of a woman who says that you know what she really wants is to get married and have a baby but the way that she's going about trying to make that happen is going out to bars late at night drinking a lot of alcohol not taking the supplements that would get her body into the best you know state to be able to carry a baby and so that's an example of a conflict which is you're saying that's what you want that you're behaving in a way that isn't necessarily going to get you that result and why are you doing that and is it because actually you're saying that's what you want because that's what all your friends are doing but you'd rather be partying right now and if that is what you want that's fine but it's a it's it's better if you say okay in this next two or three years I just want to go out and have a lot of fun and then later I would like to get married and have children but it's the disconnect is saying that you want the things that you're seeing your peer group doing but behaving in a way that's you know not aligned to that for me hearing you speak what's coming up is surrender or the Law of Detachment and I think so many of us have had an experience in life myself included numerous times where there's this thing we have our heart set on or person whether it's a thing or a person or an experience and we work so hard to make this thing work or achieve this thing and no matter what we do it just doesn't work the the the door closes if you will no matter we try to kick the door down go around the door whatever it is it's just not going to happen and then you find yourself shortly after maybe years after another door opens I'm just using the door metaphor and it's something completely different and it's easy and completely right and then in retrospect years later we say to ourselves wow I work so hard for this person or thing over here and a retrospect that would have been terrible and you know there's there's the thank God that a cliche or saying thank God for unanswered prayers I think it was a country western song uh and I think that's that's true so how do you at least in my life it has been how do you think about surrender and Detachment playing a role because I'm I'm sure many people could relate to that yeah well the first thing I'd like to say is that journaling is the best way to raise your awareness around things like that so you know if you did look back over General from a few years ago and say I was absolutely convinced that this is the only person for me and I you know did everything I could to try and make it happen I think when it feels like you're trying too hard to make something happen you do have to question whether it's actually the the right thing for you or what you want and that is particularly difficult in romantic relationships um but if you've recorded in a journal that and you can see that this maybe has happened a few times then that could help you to say okay if I'm if I'm pushing so hard against that door and it's not opening maybe I should go and try another door so part of manifestation based on neuroplasticity is that yeah it's hard physical work to be literally growing new Pathways in your brain and changing your behavior but there also has to be a balance with like I said about practicality there has to be a balance with is this so much hard work that it's actually not worth me putting my brain power into and I could be better served by putting you know energy into building a neural pathway in my brain elsewhere so how does one work at that on a daily basis in the same way I'll use the analogy if you want you know muscles you have to go to the gym you have to lift weights you have to do resistance training to be strong it takes work you can't just do it overnight and so if one wants to strengthen our Law of Attraction muscles if you will you want to grow new Pathways you can't just manifest yourself overnight to to achieve that how does one do that on a daily basis in their everyday interactions to start growing and strengthening those muscles I would say two main answers to that so one is noticing when good things happen uh in my experience with you know coaching people and working with people there's a certain tendency to achieve a goal and just move straight on to the next one and not acknowledge you know our accomplishments so the more we we raise our awareness of you know I achieved this thing or when I do this and you know good things come into my life we'll just be more aware of the environment that creates that perfect you know sort of like time of manifestation even yesterday I was saying to my best friend that um so I asked for an opportunity for her I I was given an opportunity and I thought they might need another consultant so I thought I said toe I'll ask them if they would like you know to consider you and when they said yes I said to her I've been manifesting a lot recently and that tells me that this is a good time for me to ask for things because something about the conditions is right at the moment and you know even I I'm not manifesting 365 days a year there are periods of time where it feels like nothing's happening and then I don't know if you use this phrase in the U.S but in the UK where you say you know I was waiting at the bus stop for so long and then three buses came along at once um I love it it happens a bit like that and so I have learned over the years that when it feels like that's happening that's you know that's a really good time to try to manifest other things and I would also go back and say annually with my action boards that I started doing them pretty much when I changed career so I was starting up a business and I'd want you know this is another great example lots of people would like to quit their job and you know have their own business and I'm not saying this is right for everyone but I had been thinking about it for two years and I completely quit my job as a doctor and I'd saved up a small amount of money but not enough for what I needed to really get the business going over 18 months and people said to me why don't you just go back and do like a shift in the hospital like you'd earn enough money to you know not worry about your bills and things but I feel like we can do amazing things when our back is up against the wall and we have no choice so for me that is definitely a tactic that I use to try to increase you know the success of my manifestations um and I just wanted to make the point that with the vision boards when I started it literally had the amount of money that I need to live this first year of like not having a job and starting up a business and then I doubled it every year for a few years and and like that with everything else the things that I ask for on my action boards have become bigger and bigger over time but it's because I've become more practiced at using the boards seeing how they work seeing how long certain things take so I have a better idea of you know what's the likely outcome is to be and and how big a thing I can ask for and I've also learned over time to to leave some space on my board because there are things that could happen for me that I haven't even imagined yet and I don't want to be limited by what my brain thinks I'm capable of achieving so I like to leave a bit of room for magic basically um but equally on the other hand I would say be careful what you wish for because when when the manifestations happen you know they they like accumulate and it's kind of it's just one after the other and it's you know growing bigger than you ever thought so it is about reaching that that kind of understanding and then I think you can be much more directive in what you ask for and you can keep growing it so this idea of momentum when something good happens you know you strike when the iron is hot should one thank you know Pat themselves on the back and say okay what I'm doing is working uh or should one thank the universe think think higher power and what role bringing it back to spirituality what role does spirituality plan this I'm so thankful that the universe or God or whatever it is I believe in is so good and that it is the universe is allowing this abundance uh in my life versus maybe it's a stretch to say more narcissistic point of view of hey I am just you know kicking butt and taking names and I'm manifesting like no one's ever seen bring it on let's go for more can you talk about that balance yeah I love that I think that we are interacting with the universe all the time so if we think about Carl Jung's Collective unconscious you know there's something that science hasn't explained yet that is an interaction between how we feel think and act and what happens in the material world but I would be on that Spectrum I don't want to be the narcissistic end but I'd like to be at the end where I feel that I have a lot of agency in that outcome yes of course it's reliant on a lot of other component you know moving parts that I can or can't control but I definitely like to you know I love the fact that I understand Neuroscience so that I can understand how much my brain is contributing to that process but I also think you know I mean things that we thought were science fiction in the 1970s are science now so I feel like you know there's things that haven't been explained yet that will be what's it what's an example of that well things like you know everything to do with robotics that that we've got now everything to do with AI um driverless cars or kind of I mean the last time I was in LA I saw those little Amazon trolley robots that roll around by themselves and I you know I think that's reminds me of like Star Wars or something so you mentioned Young and the collective unconscious can you talk about our relationships and where we spend our time and the role they play you often hear if you want to be successful hang around successful people if you're the smartest person in the room you're in the wrong room if you want to get fit and healthy hang out with fit and healthy people uh truth to all that yeah so there's a psychological phenomenon called social contagion and some of the statistics that come from that research are things like you know if you have a friend or friends who are overweight then you are much more likely to become overweight because it's socially acceptable if you're in a group of you know friends who are all couples and one of them gets divorced you are statistically more likely to get divorced in the next year so the you know the effect of social contagion is such but if we add in the Neuroscience then um the stress hormone cortisol actually leaks out of our skin through our sweat and particles of cortisol hang around in the atmosphere around us so so cortisol is a steroid hormone so like other steroid hormones like estrogen and progesterone women who live together or work closely together will synchronize their menstrual cycles within two months that's how much our hormones affect each other now with cortisol it doesn't matter if you're male or female but if somebody is stressed particularly if they're repressing it so their cortisol levels are high and it's not being expressed by speaking or exercising then that literally drifts into the atmosphere and goes through your skin into your blood and artificially raises your cortisol levels so stress is contagious hormonally we affect each other um particularly women um as long as we spend enough time together and then there's the social aspect of what becomes acceptable to you in terms of how people are conducting their lives you've mentioned cortisol a few times is that the missing equation or hormones in general as we look to link science with the law of attraction it seems to be playing a role here so it's playing a negative role um yeah and so oxytocin is the hormone that we would like to have more of they're basically in a balance like a seesaw so you know you can either reduce your cortisol or increase your oxytocin or both oxytocin unfortunately doesn't linger in the atmosphere so that one is increased by physical touch physical affection um bathing in warm water so and you know it aligns with the emotions of love trust joy and excitement so we need to be existing in that emotional state more of the time and getting enough hugs and spending time with people that we love um to be trying to you know increase the levels of that hormone and so if oxytocin plays a significant role in the Law of Attraction and it sounds like oxytocin is largely boosted by human connection and touch seems like the loneliest epidemic we're experiencing is it odds with our Law of Attraction goals totally I just got like Goosebumps when you said that so you know I didn't particularly want to come on to this podcast and talk about the pandemic but the impact that that's had on us physically mentally emotionally and spiritually has led to me hearing a much larger number of people saying I literally do not even know what to put on my vision board and to be honest for the first time in my life I have felt a little bit like that myself this year and on my podcast reinvent yourself with Dr Tara there's an episode with the American actress and comedian Beth Bears where she shares that she had been feeling like that since you know pretty much during the pandemic so yeah I'm very very worried for people about the longer term consequences that we don't know yet of that like chronic stress that we've been through which nobody that's living now has ever been through anything like that before so I think it's really important given that it's you know January 2023 episode to say that it's maybe not a time for people to put too much pressure on themselves and you know try to create these really big goals and actually I'm quite a fan of picking two or three really small habits to change each quarter of the year and I found that when I did that a few years ago at the end of the year I had 10 new little habits that were just completely things that I did without you know thinking about it and so you're just making me think as I'm speaking out loud that maybe my action board for 2023 is about smaller things and more specific things whereas mine tend to be quite very metaphorical very kind of big picture um maybe it's okay to say like you know if these two or three really good things happen next year then I would feel like I'm getting back to being more abundant being able to manifest more so it sounds like we still need to focus on IRL meaningful connection if we want to achieve anything which I I wholeheartedly agree with and you know you mentioned focusing on on smaller action items and I recall a conversation I had got it was almost a decade ago with a leader or influencer if you will and and the spirituality space and a little uh awkward I would say uh but he communicated that he was focused on manifesting a billion dollars and his logic was and he just like awkwardly shared this it was it was unsolicited it was like a conversation we had just met and just went there but I stuck with me um and the logic was not as many people were looking to manifest a billion and so there was less competition in the the manifestation space whereas you know more people were looking to potentially manifest a million or 10 million and so there's a lot more competition but not as many at the billion dollar level and I remember kind of smiling and and thinking this human being was was was unique and I'm always curious about that that logic didn't seem very logical to me but again I am not the neuroscientist with all the all the uh credentials so I'm curious your take on that yeah so I mean the first thing I'm thinking is okay even if there's less competition it's still you know much much bigger therefore harder to achieve goal but also if we go back to the more spiritual side of of the laws of attraction and manifestation then a large part of that is the belief that there are enough resources out there for everyone and that us manifesting what we want doesn't mean that we're in competition with other people and in the source I particularly wrote about Harmony and Universal connection and you know part of those two things is that you can't try to manifest something that could be disadvantageous to someone else because we do exist in tribes that's always been how we've survived and even though now you know it's not like we're worried about getting away from a saber-toothed tiger or dying of hypothermia on the Savannah Yeah you mentioned loneliness we cannot survive without physical warmth and human warmth so yeah I would say that's not very good manifestation so would it be different though if if I you know I think about philanthropy I think about people looking to acquire resources to do good with it versus someone who's just looking to acquire resources can you walk us through the the science there because there is a difference if you're looking to achieve resources or physique or whatever it might be just for the sake of this thing there is a difference between achieving the goal for the sake of the goal versus achieving the goal uh in an effort to make a positive impact on people's lives so having a purpose that transcends yourself is actually a very very impactful thing for your brain so your brain there's two things about the way that the brain works one is intention so I'll give you a few examples of that this will make sense later um there's a massive difference to your brain and body between you intentionally doing intermittent fasting and you rushing around and forgetting to eat meals it has a completely different hormone profile in your body walk us through that what's I'm curious about that specifically because I think that happens quite frequently so basically like the way I eat is I only eat between 12 noon and 8 PM so I don't eat breakfast but that's intentional you have to listen to the podcast that just aired as we're recording on Monday December 5th it's going to change your view on when to intermittent fast oh okay interesting yeah I will listen to that um but you know a lot of people say oh I was just like rushing around this morning so I didn't have breakfast or or you know it got to 4pm and I hadn't eaten anything so yeah we don't actually really the research on intention and attention is very much growing um I'm not an expert in that area so I have to say I don't know if we know why it has a different hormone profile in your body but it does so the other good example is less tangible it's the difference between daydreaming and intentional mind-wandering so if you feel like you're sitting at your desk and you like suddenly realize that you're just off on a Daydream and you have to bring your attention back to your work that is not good for your brain but if you spend some time a few times a week just sitting and being and allowing your mind to wander which means you're pushing your brain from the control mode to the default mode Network then that actually really increases creativity and and flexible thinking and other things that are called the executive functions of the brain so again we don't really like know why that's so different but the intention makes it different and so we also know that having a purpose that transcends yourself is a very good intention that has beneficial effects on your brain and purpose is key to everything my understanding yeah purpose trumps all yeah uh if you think about longevity purposes quickly become a critical part of that conversation yeah and so of all these things we've talked about what have you implemented in your personal life where you've seen the biggest Roi my answer to that absolutely would be the action boards but let me preface that by saying I take on an intense new learning every year so either a language or a musical instrument or a sport more recently I've done something a bit less tangible like work on my like levels of happiness how I view the world and I did that around the same time that I was getting tennis lessons and I kind of tracked the neuroplasticity of both of those you know one's obviously very obvious if you're improving your Technique at tennis the other one's a bit harder to to judge until you get to that Tipping Point where you really notice yourself that you're thinking differently than how you used to so walk us through tennis because everyone here in America I don't know what it's like in in the UK but everyone's playing pickleball now oh I haven't heard of that is that a thing is this pickleball thing in the UK not as far as it might be a thing but I haven't heard of it I've started playing alongside my wife it's quite fun and it is not as physically intense as tennis and actually lends itself to being more of a social activity because it's played in doubles and the Court's small so it's like great for connecting with people and playing and being physically fit um so with all that said I just think that's a good example walk us through we'll say tennis or pickleball what does that look like well like with anything it depends upon the intensity of how you engage in it so yeah if you just play with friends once a week then that's good that's great um and you would improve over time but if you got a lesson once a week as well or you entered a competition you're more likely to improve more so it's about again you know creating the conditions for you to maximize the neuroplasticity effect of of doing something I mean I always think language is actually the best metaphor for that which is again you know again I would say that anyone could download the Duolingo app and like try to brush up their Spanish or whatever but if you have a lesson every week with a teacher and they set you homework and you have to you know submit this homework and then there's going to be a test in six months time or if you know that you're going to travel to Mexico in six months time you're much more likely to get much better at Spanish than if you just sit on the you know couch in the evenings on Duolingo so I think that's such a great example this idea of a test or a match or a game to access assess uh progress whether you're doing well and it brings me back to this notion of we manage what we measure so you know I've got my wearables I've got my aura ring I've got my wolf I I manage I manage how I eat and work out and do numerous things throughout the day and I look at the numbers and so how do you think about measurement in what we're talking about today with it's very easy for me to look at sleep performance with an aura ring but how does one look at Law of Attraction performance so two things one is journaling so you know making a list and then writing about what you're doing to try to achieve that and writing down when you know you did achieve certain things on it I have my I had my action board for this year sorry for 2022 on Pinterest and I created a subsection on the board that had the title manifested so every time something on my action board became true I moved it into the subsection and it was a way of motivating myself and you know making it very visual that what the balance was of things that had manifested and hadn't manifested yet interesting so in some ways when we're we're setting our 2023 goals is maybe we do this on an annual basis and put our goals out there and keep a running inventory of what's what I've achieved what I've succeeded at and and what maybe I fell short on to to held ourselves accountable absolutely and and sometimes things do take a bit longer than a year so you know if you come to December and everything hasn't come true like there was you know something for me that in December hadn't come true but it came true in early February so you know I also learned that that sometimes things take a bit longer than a year so don't think just because it's now you know the end of 2023 then you and one of your things didn't come true that it's never going to happen you can add that onto your next year's board or keep it on there and then put the new things on as well so I mentioned sleep in the example of Aura ring and you had a great piece on mine buddy green you were quoted I thought it was fascinating sleep posture and the role plays in brain health so we'll link to the the article in the show notes but can we spend a moment on sleep posture yeah of course I actually did a reel for you on um Instagram yeah and I was saying that the best position for cleaning out your brain overnight which is a very active forcible flushing process of getting rid of the sort of toxins that build up through the wear and tear of daily life um and this process takes seven to eight hours is lying on your side so basically left or right side but that's better than lying on your front or your back and it's something to do with the positioning of the vessels in your neck um so basically the fluid that the brain sits in which also is you know there are ventricles in the brain that forces toxins out overnight and if your head is to the side then it's easier to expel them it's called the glymphatic system in the brain but basically it goes into your lymphatic system and then gets expelled from your body yeah so intra is I've actually I love it side sleeping yeah I have a special pillow that makes me sleep on my side oh really what is it it's a temporal memory foam pillow that's got a ridge so that it fits nicely into the side of your head and neck and shoulder and so on the subject of sleeping and Law of Attraction and cleaning out the garbage at night can you talk about routine as we approach bedtime and making sure is there anything we can do uh in terms of the Law of Attraction as it relates to sleep and and bedtime um I love how you've combined those things so two things one related and it all comes back to sleep everything's really yeah um so having regular sleep and wake times is up there in importance with having adequate quality and length of sleep so that's one little tweak that people could make in 2023 that would really improve their brain power and then secondly there's a psychological phenomenon called the tetris effect which says that the thing that you look at last thing at night imprints on your subconscious more strongly than anything else during the day so when we go from being asleep to waking up or being awake to falling asleep they're called the hypnopompic and hypnagogic stages and they are stages where our subconscious is very susceptible to suggestion and so I keep my um physical action board next to my bed so that I see it first thing in the morning and Lasting at night are there other things we should do right before we go to sleep or right when we wake up I love the idea of putting our action board near our bed uh is it expressing gratitude is it thinking about that thing uh you're trying to achieve is there anything else we should do yeah so I would say last thing at night there's a few things you could do so looking at your action board is definitely a good one to do in terms of things like you know the neuroplasticity of building happiness think about all the things that went right that day um and then if you have any trouble falling asleep you can do Yoga Nidra otherwise known as psychic sleep so I would say those would be my main ones for falling asleep for waking up the first thing I do when I wake up and I don't know if it's a coincidence that I'm a neuroscientist and I just absolutely love sleeping I mean that's my superpower and so my bed is the most important place in my house and I've put a lot of effort into making it really comfortable so when I wake up the first thing I do is just in my mind with my eyes still closed is I think I love my silk pillowcase I love my side sleeping pillow I love my mattress I love my silk duvet I love all my pets so basically you're starting the day by just saying how much you love you know everything that you can think of so that's kind of a gratitude practice um then I always do I breathe into any areas of tension in my body I felt in the pandemic like ever it felt like you know you should do your breathing first in the morning you should do yoga first thing in the morning you should meditate first thing in the morning you should Journal first in the morning I got a bit stressed like how many things am I supposed to do first thing in the morning so I just really brought it down to something simple and I thought I'll do my breathing in bed before I get out of bed and then I feel like I've done you know started on that range of things that you could do in the morning I love it so in closing bringing it back to the science where do you think the the science is going on the law of attraction or is there a really interesting study that came out recently that you thought was what was was strong in terms of supporting that connection science in general what excites you what's really exciting me for 2023 is this theme of personal reinvention and I mean this is neuroplasticity but it's basically saying that at any age any stage any mindset you can you know you can change your brain and reinvent your life and I think this is so needed after the you know a couple of years that we've all had um so that idea that you know to move away from resolutions and think about reinvention and you can do that step by step and you know bit by bit and I think that's very exciting and you know the science really supports it and what I try to do through my podcast is give people examples of high profile people that have achieved that you know so that and I've got kind of musicians and sports people and fashionistas and actors so it's just lots of different Industries or examples for people I'm just hoping that one of those stories will resonate with you know different people out there and um encourage them to consider Reinventing themselves too so on that note what's your favorite story um oh my gosh it's so because there's so many Amazing Stories I mean I'll just give you a few Snippets of them so my friend Chanel she was playing Tina Turner in the West End in London and she got an opportunity to go and sing with the Rolling Stones that was crazy when that happened my friend Tamara Mellon shared that her partner had created a list of women that he wanted to meet and her name was on it and they were at the conference together and he went after and said I'd like to have a private drink with you and they've been together for 11 years now so and actually I interviewed um Austin Winkler who was the front man of hinder and we've co-written a song together so in that respect I would say my part of that story is that I was told at high school that I wasn't good at Art and that meant I wasn't creative and I fully believed that for two decades and even after that you know I quit my job I started up my business I wrote books I've created a home and family and things like that I still didn't it wasn't creative in the sense of the word that I consider create like it wasn't music or dance or drama or painting and so for me to have co-written a song with a rock star is my biggest personal reinvention and I've had quite a few congratulations thank you is that is that song Somewhere on iTunes or Spotify yeah yeah it's on every platform um it's called carry on and it was released on October 26th 2020 congratulations we'll have to link to that in the show now thank you I'd love it if you did that yes it means so much to me and I think it's a very beautiful song but I suppose I would say that well congratulations and Tara thanks so much for for taking the time to chat with us super fascinating thanks Jason I'm so happy to be working with you

Channel: mindbodygreen

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Id: 4h5QyPwkqS0

Length: 59min 6sec (3546 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 02 2023