Speaker 1: I'll get a team. Welcome to another installment You project.
Speaker 1: You know who it is. I hope you're enjoying your week.
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday night. As we sit down and record this,
Speaker 1: I've got a new friend. I've got a new friend,
Speaker 1: while I'm about to make a new friend, doctor Sherry Madge.
Speaker 2: Did I get it right? Did I nearly get it right?
Speaker 3: That's perfect? Greg, you got it?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for thanks for having a chat with us
Speaker 1: on the You Project. How has your day been?
Speaker 3: Wow? Pratty much technic. I'm busy, but I think it
Speaker 3: is good to have some busy days so you feel
Speaker 3: alive for production and you feel life is going on
Speaker 3: and you're part of it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1: Now, in order for me to not read out some
Speaker 1: bio that puts people to sleep, not that you have
Speaker 1: a boring bio, but could you tell my audience a
Speaker 1: little bit about about you, about who you are and
Speaker 1: the work you do, and then we'll go from there.
Speaker 4: Of course, my pleasure.
Speaker 3: So Craig, as you probably ask, my name perfectly beautifully right.
Speaker 3: So my name is Cherry sharemaj. I am a neuroscientist,
Speaker 3: a PhD in neuroscience and two pastructress again in neuroscience,
Speaker 3: I've been working with different universities Flinders University at the
Speaker 3: moment and Tauhouse University in Canada, Melbourne University in Welburg,
Speaker 3: and so I work basically on the research and also
Speaker 3: teaching of neuroscience and my research basically focus on brain
Speaker 3: pathological situations during aging such as Alzheimer's disease, different types
Speaker 3: of dementia, Parkinson disease, you name it, and also brain
Speaker 3: aging in general. I'm also working as the editor of
Speaker 3: or in chief for some journals, and the one that
Speaker 3: I'm really passionate about is my speaking job is about
Speaker 3: the self hope speaking, also motivationally speaking, keynote speaking, and
Speaker 3: I really try to bring the science to this area.
Speaker 3: So what I actually consider as my own mission in
Speaker 3: this particular field is to fill the gap between science
Speaker 3: and different aspects of personal growth. So the like your
Speaker 3: story short, when you want to talk about how people behave,
Speaker 3: how people want to improve their lives, it's better to
Speaker 3: have science backed up. So if you have science, if
Speaker 3: you can understand what's actually happening inside your brain, when
Speaker 3: you want to make that change in your life for good.
Speaker 3: So I think it gives you better motivation to go
Speaker 3: for it and to keep going for it. So yes,
Speaker 3: at the moment, I'm also working with the Council of
Speaker 3: Ambulance Authorities, which is covering ambulance services in Australia and
Speaker 3: New Zealand AFA New Guinea, while I'm working with Phillineers
Speaker 3: University too. So yesience speaking euro science, this is my passion.
Speaker 2: Wow, you're busy. Where did you grow up? Sherry Ow?
Speaker 3: I was born in Iran, Persia. I got my PhD
Speaker 3: over there. Then I got invitation for on Flinders University
Speaker 3: to come over and work with them, so I came here.
Speaker 3: Then I got first postag from Howard Flory Institute in
Speaker 3: Mobile and then I went to Canada while I joined
Speaker 3: the psychology department in Dahouse University and I got my
Speaker 3: second post tag. I joined the faculty and I worked
Speaker 3: with department. I also worked with some pharmaceutical companies who
Speaker 3: developed some particular therapeutic tools for Alzheimer's disease. Then I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: Australia is my homeland. They have to come back. So
Speaker 3: I just came back to Australia.
Speaker 1: All right, I love it. So you've been you've been
Speaker 1: doing not much. The bottom line, you've just been relaxing
Speaker 1: and paying lazy exactly, exactly, city the academic couch, just
Speaker 1: twiddling your thumbs.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, So let's talk about.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about being Firstly, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: being a science communicator. So, like you, well, that's not
Speaker 1: your main job, But my main job is podcasting and
Speaker 1: corporate speaking. So I do over one hundred corporate gigs
Speaker 1: a year, give or take. Last week I did four.
Speaker 1: I'm busy in that space. But one of the challenges
Speaker 1: for me is sharing science in a way that's really
Speaker 1: understandable and usable and relevant. And because when you are
Speaker 1: and I mean this with respect, like when you're talking
Speaker 1: to corporate audiences generally or just the general public, you know,
Speaker 1: usually the majority of the audience are not researchers, are
Speaker 1: not scientists, are definitely not neuroscientists or neuropsychologists. But you're
Speaker 1: trying to share information and ideas and research that can
Speaker 1: be not only interesting, but stuff that they can put
Speaker 1: into practice. Right, So how do you do how do
Speaker 1: you do that? Like, how do you how do you
Speaker 1: make sure that what you're sharing is understandable to a
Speaker 1: room full of academics one and then two something that
Speaker 1: they can put to use.
Speaker 3: That's a very good question, right, Well, the thing is,
Speaker 3: I think the secret is simplicity.
Speaker 4: So if you want to.
Speaker 3: Talk, even to a room full of academics which they
Speaker 3: do understand your science, it's better to start with simple
Speaker 3: facts and then basically make your way through.
Speaker 4: Bigger stuff that you want to express.
Speaker 3: So you translated to a room full of different other
Speaker 3: people who have very good background, different other skills, but
Speaker 3: not your science. So you still go with that simplicity
Speaker 3: and try to bring the science the way that you
Speaker 3: know it, to translate it to the way that they
Speaker 3: can digest it, they can observe it, they can actually
Speaker 3: get it the same thing that you basically. For example,
Speaker 3: if you want to go to a mechanic and I
Speaker 3: don't know very much about car and you know, engines
Speaker 3: and everything. When I go there and ask them to
Speaker 3: explain what's happening to my car, he won't go through
Speaker 3: those very much you know, mechanical, very difficult things complicated.
Speaker 3: He tries to explain it to me in a way
Speaker 3: that I actually understand it. So the thing about simplicity,
Speaker 3: so you bring the science without changing the fact about
Speaker 3: it and then bring it and then try to actually
Speaker 3: translate it to a language that people undress that. Luckily
Speaker 3: I have your lecturer for twenty years. So this is
Speaker 3: almost the same way that you want to talk to students, like,
Speaker 3: for example, the first year of student coming from high
Speaker 3: school and starts to study biology, for example, it's not
Speaker 3: working if you want to deliver the information in the
Speaker 3: actual scientific terms. You want to make her or that
Speaker 3: person interested this. You don't want to just push that
Speaker 3: person away. So because if you don't understand the things,
Speaker 3: it's going to be boring after why for you? So
Speaker 3: you have to make it very interesting for that person.
Speaker 3: And the way is to simplify these things. Try to
Speaker 3: make it attractive the way that person wants to actually
Speaker 3: grab it, every bit of it. And I assume that
Speaker 3: people are coming to your thought for example or tomorrow talk,
Speaker 3: they are already interested in that subject, right, So this
Speaker 3: is the job of you for those people who are
Speaker 3: interested in the subject to make it simple so they say, oh,
Speaker 3: that's actually it's worth it coming to this thought.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, that's the way I love it. Hell,
Speaker 1: how well do you think? And these are just thoughts, right,
Speaker 1: This is This is not like I said to you before.
Speaker 1: This is not an interview. This is a conversation. How
Speaker 1: well do you think the average person understands.
Speaker 2: Their own mind?
Speaker 1: I know, different to their own brain, but well, you know,
Speaker 1: there's whatever. I know that's a bit of a construct.
Speaker 1: But how well do people understand their mind? And how
Speaker 1: much do people are nowhere diverging a little bit from diverting,
Speaker 1: a little bit from neuroscience, but how much do people
Speaker 1: think about how they think and why they think the
Speaker 1: way they think?
Speaker 3: Well, lots and listens. So the lots thing is people.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know myself better than everybody else around,
Speaker 3: so I know what is happening inside my mind when
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about something, when I do something, when I
Speaker 3: act in the way that I act, I know why
Speaker 3: I'm doing this. That is the That is the lot.
Speaker 3: But actually the little so something that we do most
Speaker 3: of the things I can tell you fortunately that we
Speaker 3: do during the day, these are happening automatically. These are
Speaker 3: the things that we or our brains have been trained
Speaker 3: since we were childhood, from family, from environment, from school,
Speaker 3: whatever that we've got the brain, the cells inside our brains,
Speaker 3: they have been trained in the way to think that way,
Speaker 3: then when we come to adult food, we start practicing
Speaker 3: and basically acting the way that we have been trained
Speaker 3: to act and without sometimes without thinking. So I can
Speaker 3: give you one simple example, which I'm not saying wrong
Speaker 3: or right, but like religious beliefs that we have or
Speaker 3: believes about, some of the fundamental things that are actually
Speaker 3: turned to be our values and we think of them
Speaker 3: as our values, but we got them actually since we
Speaker 3: have been charged, and then we started to practicing them,
Speaker 3: repeating them. They have been told to us, do this,
Speaker 3: do that, or this is wrong, this is wrong. Now
Speaker 3: we're doing those things right. So when that thing happens
Speaker 3: to me, and when I want to ask that behavior
Speaker 3: the daily basis, I actually do it routinely, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, And then I know that I'm doing it,
Speaker 3: but I actually don't know why I'm doing it. So
Speaker 3: that is the way that is when the neuroscience comes
Speaker 3: to the state and it tells you, all right, now
Speaker 3: just a stop, just pause. Think about what you are doing.
Speaker 3: You know that you're doing it, but you don't know
Speaker 3: why you are doing it. Think about if it is right,
Speaker 3: if it is the thing that serves you the best,
Speaker 3: or this is just one practice that you learn and
Speaker 3: you keep doing it, it's not gonna serve you anymore.
Speaker 3: So you have to pause and think about it to
Speaker 3: observe what you are doing. And that is the second
Speaker 3: step that we have to improve. So we know what
Speaker 3: we are doing, we don't know why we are doing it.
Speaker 3: I think it's better to a short thinking about what
Speaker 3: we are doing, what we are doing, and then if
Speaker 3: we find them no working for us anymore, yes, sure
Speaker 3: to think about maybe it's time for a change. So
Speaker 3: you know, just lying story short answer your question. We
Speaker 3: know what we are doing most of the times, we
Speaker 3: don't actually have very much of the clue why we
Speaker 3: are doing it, and maybe we shouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: That's so true. And it's so true also that we
Speaker 1: were almost on this autopilot. You know, we're living. We
Speaker 1: do so many things unconsciously without making necessarily decisions. But
Speaker 1: we do it this way because we've always done it
Speaker 1: that way, even if it's a five out of ten result. No,
Speaker 1: this is how we do it, rather than going, well,
Speaker 1: this is probably not optimal, this is probably not ideal.
Speaker 1: I could maybe I could maybe, No, this is just
Speaker 1: how that we do it, and even people who I
Speaker 1: mean I told you before we started. You know my
Speaker 1: background is I didn't tell you this, but owning gyms,
Speaker 1: I owned gyms for twenty five years and working with
Speaker 1: the general public and athletes. But even people who simultaneously
Speaker 1: share you say something like they want to be healthier
Speaker 1: and fitter while simultaneously having all of these habits that
Speaker 1: make them unhealthy and unfit. Right, But if you say,
Speaker 1: do you want to be healthy fit, I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about vanity or ego or aesthetics. I'm just talking about
Speaker 1: health and function. They simultaneously want to be different while
Speaker 1: doing something that is self destructive. Like there's this divergence
Speaker 1: of what they want and what they do.
Speaker 4: You know, actually, so shouldn't agree more.
Speaker 3: It's just like yes, Like one simple example is, you know,
Speaker 3: going to fast food and we all.
Speaker 4: Know that is not with I don't name any company,
Speaker 4: just fast food.
Speaker 3: I mean know that this is not good, This is
Speaker 3: not healthy, this is full of saturated fat. Whatever we
Speaker 3: see in like TV and here from radio or everything,
Speaker 3: still we go for it. And then if we go
Speaker 3: for it actually in a very exponential rate, I can't
Speaker 3: say this the general society. So yes, there is there
Speaker 3: is a line between knowing something and being motivated enough
Speaker 3: to do that something. So sometimes we know something is good,
Speaker 3: but there is something basically we need to push us
Speaker 3: a little bit more, and I believe that would be
Speaker 3: that knowledge that we can't occure by understanding what is
Speaker 3: happening inside the break, is what is going on if
Speaker 3: I really want to be committed to make that change happen.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, you're absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: Do you think that one of the reasons that we
Speaker 1: don't like we know that we should do this thing,
Speaker 1: but we don't do the thing. And one is because
Speaker 1: we're in this kind of I guess psychological, emotional and
Speaker 1: behavioral groove, right, we're stuck in this groove and this
Speaker 1: is just repetition and this is this is our autopilot.
Speaker 1: That's one reason. But another reason is quite often the
Speaker 1: thing that we need to do to create the change
Speaker 1: is hard, and we don't like discomfort, so we keep
Speaker 1: looking for the magic pill and the you know, the
Speaker 1: two minute apps or the instant gratifications. So there's that
Speaker 1: you have to be able to you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean to be able to create real shift. Generally,
Speaker 1: real change is not quick, fun, easy, or painless.
Speaker 3: You know exactly you're you're You're totally true. The thing
Speaker 3: that is actually happening, Craig, is when you want to
Speaker 3: make change, we need to know the definition of change.
Speaker 3: So change, you know, if it is what I mean,
Speaker 3: behavioral change, ac curing a new skill, different whatever, whatever
Speaker 3: changes is. The definition of change is transforming from one
Speaker 3: state to another state, which is quite the same as
Speaker 3: the state that we had before. So to do that change,
Speaker 3: whatever change that you name it, we need to make
Speaker 3: that change first happen in our brain. And actually, when
Speaker 3: I say brain is physically like the brain, the cells
Speaker 3: inside the brain which are connected in one particular way
Speaker 3: that causes us to have that behavior, that thought, whatever,
Speaker 3: they need to change their connections to the different way.
Speaker 3: And it's not happening overnight. So the thing that happens
Speaker 3: to people is when they go like for as I said,
Speaker 3: like gym or changing the diet, changing more particular behavior,
Speaker 3: different things. They expect to see the results in very
Speaker 3: short time, like in maybe a couple of days, a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks if they're committed. But this is not happening.
Speaker 3: So imagine the behavior that you have or the skill
Speaker 3: that you learned.
Speaker 4: How many years for that language that you learned since
Speaker 4: your childhood?
Speaker 3: How many years it took for you to get perfect
Speaker 3: and fluent in that particular thing. Few years? So how
Speaker 3: could you expect it to change that behavior in just
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks or a couple of months. Yes,
Speaker 3: your brain actually needs those cells which are connected so
Speaker 3: strongly to each other that actually makes you do that thing.
Speaker 3: They need to break down those connections and at the
Speaker 3: same time they need to break make new connections. And
Speaker 3: that's actually about actually making connections proteins. They need that,
Speaker 3: they need to build those proteins inside the brain. That
Speaker 3: takes time, that takes maybe months, sometimes years, and then
Speaker 3: you will see the results eventually. But unfortunately, this is
Speaker 3: the thing that as you said, like you see the
Speaker 3: ads and they say, oh, you have like five weeks
Speaker 3: you will lose like ten pounds. I make you assure
Speaker 3: that if you lose ten pounds in five weeks, just
Speaker 3: like based on a very not healthy thing, it comes
Speaker 3: back because it is not happening inside your brain. So
Speaker 3: you need to be patient, You need to be consistent,
Speaker 3: You need to be persistent in following that particle ar goal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent agree.
Speaker 1: I've written a few books, but the first book that
Speaker 1: I wrote, which was a long time ago, maybe twenty
Speaker 1: five years ago, was about was about the reality that
Speaker 1: changing your body is largely not about your body, right,
Speaker 1: so exactly right, Yeah, working in with it's almost like
Speaker 1: the physical transformation is the byproduct. It's like, what I
Speaker 1: really needed to change was my cognitive default setting, you know,
Speaker 1: the way that I thought, the way that I chose
Speaker 1: my relationship with food, myself talk like, there were all
Speaker 1: of these other emotional, psychological and cognitive variables that were
Speaker 1: drivers of behavior, and ultimately my body was at the
Speaker 1: mercy of my choices and behaviors. And you know, and
Speaker 1: so while everyone was talking about fat and protein and
Speaker 1: carbohydrates and set and reps and energy in and out,
Speaker 1: which is all relevant, I realized that even if we
Speaker 1: got all the you know, the physiology stuff kind of right, sets, reps, weight, volume, workload,
Speaker 1: there was still this other cognitive, psychological, emotional component that
Speaker 1: really impacted the kind of results that people could get.
Speaker 1: And like you said, if somebody loses say ten pounds,
Speaker 1: let's wear Australia. So let's say they lose five kilos
Speaker 1: in five weeks. The chances of that person depending on
Speaker 1: how they lose it. But in my experience, which is
Speaker 1: vast in this space, the chances of them losing five
Speaker 1: kilos and then maybe another five and another five if necessary,
Speaker 1: and then keeping that off for the next thirty or
Speaker 1: forty years is almost zero, right, because we didn't change
Speaker 1: the underlying kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: You know said it that's totally true, Yes, exactly. It
Speaker 3: takes time, and it takes understanding that it can happen.
Speaker 4: You have to believe it.
Speaker 3: You have to make it a believer that it can happen,
Speaker 3: because it's as simple as this. If you work on
Speaker 3: the brain, it can happen. It's not just like until
Speaker 3: I guess, till the last moment if the brain is healthy.
Speaker 3: Of course, I'm not talking about pathological situation or this
Speaker 3: ease situation. But if your brain is healthy, you can't
Speaker 3: change it till the last moment that you breathe on
Speaker 3: this planet. That is actually gonna happen, just you have
Speaker 3: to work on it. But the working on it is
Speaker 3: as a discipline. There's a commitment, and I'm sure if
Speaker 3: we get to that turning point that we see that Okay,
Speaker 3: this is a time for the change, and we understand
Speaker 3: what is happening inside your brain, then we can change it.
Speaker 3: There is, there is, There is no no question that
Speaker 3: it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I know there's no set answer to
Speaker 1: this question, so I don't want an answer. I just
Speaker 1: want your thoughts. And the question is and it varies
Speaker 1: person to person, and it varies depending on what the
Speaker 1: issue is we're talking about. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that I'm always trying to do is help people create
Speaker 1: a new operating system cognitive emotional behavior and to change habits.
Speaker 1: Do you have any you know destruct now, whether or
Speaker 1: not that habit is drinking too many coffees or snorting
Speaker 1: cocaine or pawn or you know, gambling.
Speaker 2: Obviously there are lots of variables. But what are your
Speaker 2: thoughts around changing habits that are destructive?
Speaker 4: Yes, So that's a very good question.
Speaker 3: And I really love to answer this question because some
Speaker 3: of those problems actually the problems.
Speaker 4: That most of the people at this era are dealing
Speaker 4: with them.
Speaker 3: So the thing about changing a destructive behavior is think
Speaker 3: about why destructive behavior was created at the first step. So,
Speaker 3: for example, one simple example is gambling, whatever behavior that
Speaker 3: we have and we keep doing that. That's because that
Speaker 3: behavior is actually giving us a sense of pleasure, a
Speaker 3: sense of fulfillment, even those bad behaviors. There is a
Speaker 3: system inside the brain which is called reward system. This
Speaker 3: is a simple system that the kid has. When the
Speaker 3: kids is doing a good job and then it's just
Speaker 3: like a candy or something as like the you know
Speaker 3: the price, then that reward system inside the brain is
Speaker 3: getting more activated and more activated. There is no difference
Speaker 3: between adults and kids. So when you get to do
Speaker 3: something and you activate your reward system, that makes that
Speaker 3: behavior stronger and stronger. You keep doing that, the reward
Speaker 3: system is getting more more active and the behavior actually
Speaker 3: consolidated inside your body. So exactly about gambling, about smoking,
Speaker 3: about different distructive behavior, about eating like fats like very delicious,
Speaker 3: the salty fatty which is really nice to the taste
Speaker 3: once and then you keep doing it. You keep activating
Speaker 3: your reward system. So if you want to stop doing that,
Speaker 3: you have to do something about that reward system. It's
Speaker 3: not just happening. When I say, as parents said to
Speaker 3: my kid, that don't do that, that's not happening, or
Speaker 3: do this, that's not happening.
Speaker 4: You have to work on that reward system.
Speaker 3: And there are two. Actually I'm not going to give
Speaker 3: you kind of a prescription, but these are the things
Speaker 3: you have to consider if you want to change a behavior.
Speaker 3: Why you want to change a behavior you have to
Speaker 3: do and you have to work on two different areas.
Speaker 3: The first area is to try to get rid of
Speaker 3: that bad behavior. Why you replace it with a good behavior?
Speaker 3: Because the job of the brain is to think. The
Speaker 3: job of your brain is to ask for your If
Speaker 3: you cannot suppress that reward system without replacing it with
Speaker 3: something good. Right, So at the same time, if you want,
Speaker 3: for example, to stop gambling, you have to get those
Speaker 3: gambling neurons connected to each other weaker and weaker. Why
Speaker 3: you replace it something else, something that can make your
Speaker 3: busy and a brain busy. So the first thing to
Speaker 3: get rid of that bad behavior is to think less
Speaker 3: focus on it. The job of the brain is thinking,
Speaker 3: is focus, and this is the job of the brain.
Speaker 3: You cannot fight it if you keep yourself less focused
Speaker 3: on that thing, that bad disruptive behavior.
Speaker 4: After a while, after a few.
Speaker 3: Months, a couple of years, maybe those connections they get
Speaker 3: weaker and weaker.
Speaker 4: Consequently, you will.
Speaker 3: Lose interest in that particular destructive behavior because the brain
Speaker 3: cannot get any reward of this anymore, any pleasure of
Speaker 3: this anymore. But at the same time, it still needs
Speaker 3: that pleasure. The still needs that we That's why people
Speaker 3: who are stopping gambling they come back to gambling after
Speaker 3: Why because now after a couple of months, they don't
Speaker 3: feel that pleasure anymore. They're just seeking that pleasure. So
Speaker 3: that's the second step. You have to replace it with
Speaker 3: some good things. Distract yourself with doing something that you
Speaker 3: know you're passionate about. I'm sure every single of us
Speaker 3: at least has one thing in life that we like
Speaker 3: to do. If it is like learning a new language,
Speaker 3: going to the gym, doing some sport, doing some writing, whatever,
Speaker 3: Just make your brain busy while you can get enough
Speaker 3: pleasure by doing that other thing while you're getting rid
Speaker 3: of that one. So long as sure make something and
Speaker 3: you know, destroy something else.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm just writing notes here. It's like unlike a student.
Speaker 1: Well I literally am a student. I'm your student at
Speaker 1: the moment, all right.
Speaker 3: All right myself, so don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: We're all teachers and students.
Speaker 1: Okay, so again, no, as you said, this is not
Speaker 1: a prescription, this is not a personal recommendation. But let's
Speaker 1: just talk a little bit about how we can keep
Speaker 1: our brain functioning as optimally as we can.
Speaker 2: At any age.
Speaker 1: We know there's cognitive decline, but we also know that
Speaker 1: there are lots of variables around that. You know, some genetics,
Speaker 1: some lifestyle, some you know, food related, some sleep related,
Speaker 1: booze habits. You know, there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: that impact one's cognition. Talk to us a little bit,
Speaker 1: Dock about how we can keep our brain working somewhere
Speaker 1: close to optimal. Like, I'm sixty, right, and I'm very grateful.
Speaker 1: I don't drink booze, I've never calcol I've never been high,
Speaker 1: I've never had cigarettes. I sleep great, I don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of stress. I love my life. I work
Speaker 1: out every day. I don't think I have optimal genetics,
Speaker 1: but I have not bad genetics. But I think it's
Speaker 1: very hard because the Craig experience for Craig is subjective, obviously,
Speaker 1: but I feel like my brain works better now than
Speaker 1: it did twenty years ago because I'm researching, learning, studying, speaking,
Speaker 1: focusing all the time. So but enough about me, tell
Speaker 1: us about how we can optimize our brain.
Speaker 4: Sure, definitely, Well, Craig, I have written a book lately.
Speaker 3: It's name Metamorphosis, and that is From Neuroplasticity to Happiness,
Speaker 3: and I said it available on Amazon. But the reason,
Speaker 3: as I'm saying it, is that all's come back to
Speaker 3: a term which is neuroplasticity. And by neuroplasticity it maybe
Speaker 3: just sounds a very big warrant, but it's actually not
Speaker 3: neuroplastic the meaning change. So change in the neurons inside
Speaker 3: the brain can help you to change whatever you expect
Speaker 3: from yourself, behavior, thought, whatever, So that neuroplassics it is
Speaker 3: actually very important, but it's not happening by itself. You
Speaker 3: have to do some change something around it to make
Speaker 3: the environment the situation prepare for doctor Classicity.
Speaker 4: And one of the things that you said is our lifestyle.
Speaker 3: If you want to make a change, you have to
Speaker 3: make sure that you are starting changing your lifestyle. So,
Speaker 3: for example, you want to change a behavior, a distructive behavior,
Speaker 3: as you said, first of all, you need to change
Speaker 3: your lifestyle. It's really difficult sometimes if I want to
Speaker 3: change my diet. If I want to change the way
Speaker 3: that exercise, if I want to change the way that
Speaker 3: I sleep, I still like four or five days because
Speaker 3: the rest of the day I'm watching TV, I scrolling
Speaker 3: down my phone, and then like five six hours. So
Speaker 3: you have to make those changes. But first of all,
Speaker 3: to make those changes, you have to change your mindset.
Speaker 3: And that's when it comes to having a growth mindset.
Speaker 3: You need to open the I gues say, the cage
Speaker 3: of your brain to change. I can't change. I want
Speaker 3: to change. I'm not fixed under sound. I want to
Speaker 3: make some changes. So starting with what is not making
Speaker 3: you happy? And when you do want destructive behavior one
Speaker 3: at a time, past and think about that behavior. Think
Speaker 3: if that behavior is going to serve you for good
Speaker 3: or not. Usually it's a very good feeling to have
Speaker 3: a very nice fattierer pullop salt. But I guarantee ninety
Speaker 3: five percent of us we don't have a good feeling
Speaker 3: after eating it. Maybe during it ag but after what
Speaker 3: we feel heavy, we feel a little debiguilty, we feel
Speaker 3: not hap because this is.
Speaker 4: Not what exactly what your body praise for.
Speaker 3: It is not actually healthy, right, So pouset when you
Speaker 3: want next time you want to do something, post just
Speaker 3: for a few seconds and think if that behavior that
Speaker 3: you're gonna do is gonna serve you for good or not.
Speaker 4: If it is for a good point.
Speaker 3: If it is not, stop doing it and start trying
Speaker 3: to Okay, this is not good for me, then find
Speaker 3: out what's gonna be good for you to replace. Right.
Speaker 3: If it is not, I'm not telling you just go
Speaker 3: to be just it's just vegetables all day. No, it's
Speaker 3: start little and simple at the time. Instead of having
Speaker 3: two guard years a day, one day, maybe instead of
Speaker 3: having to to to casino to do gambling, maybe just
Speaker 3: pouse and think, oh, maybe it's not a good thing
Speaker 3: that I keep doing it. Maybe I have to go
Speaker 3: to a movie, for example. Replace it with something else.
Speaker 3: If you are not doing exercise and doesn't vary good example,
Speaker 3: because physical exercise actually will help your brain to have
Speaker 3: good blood circulation, work, healthier, work nicer, get rid of
Speaker 3: those toxic proteins that's gonna build up during when we
Speaker 3: are aging, and that's that's gonna work.
Speaker 4: For you for good in different areas.
Speaker 3: Right. So next, I'm not saying like you have to
Speaker 3: go to gym every every hour, now. But if you
Speaker 3: want to do some physical activities and you just don't
Speaker 3: want to do it, just.
Speaker 4: Think about it. It's short and small.
Speaker 3: Maybe ten minutes. It's not gonna tell me ten minutes,
Speaker 3: I start jogging. For ten minutes, I start doing like
Speaker 3: simple exerts even at home for ten minutes. That's good.
Speaker 3: I'm watching TV. Ended up sitting on the couch. It
Speaker 3: started like.
Speaker 4: Doing some exercise in front of TV ten minutes a day.
Speaker 3: And that actually that that that sounds really logical for
Speaker 3: every other behavior that we can have. And this is
Speaker 3: the thing that you said at the beginning of this podcast,
Speaker 3: and you said, do we know what we do? And
Speaker 3: I said a lot, a lot, Because when it comes
Speaker 3: to pausing there and thinking about the behavior, we.
Speaker 4: Know a lot. We know that this is not good
Speaker 4: for us.
Speaker 3: That's the part that knowing lots comes about us, right,
Speaker 3: So I know that that's working for me, Then that
Speaker 3: post helps me.
Speaker 4: That's that's the mindfulness of what we are doing.
Speaker 3: Observing what we are doing, pose it without just repeating
Speaker 3: it automatically. Next time that I just drive to that
Speaker 3: fast food shop automatically, just a sub car. Actually, maybe
Speaker 3: I'll turn it around and this time, I just ignore
Speaker 3: just going this sub time to fast food and just
Speaker 3: maybe tomorrow. So try to do one thing at the time,
Speaker 3: start small, and then as I said, like, try to
Speaker 3: change your life son with open minds. So and I
Speaker 3: guarantee that it's gonna happen. It is going to happen
Speaker 3: to you one at a time, and then at the
Speaker 3: end of you know the day, you.
Speaker 4: Will see like lots of change happened in your life
Speaker 4: for good.
Speaker 1: Now love it. I've got a million questions. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: you busy, all right, My next question. My next question
Speaker 1: is this. So, in terms of things that can impact
Speaker 1: the way that your brain works negatively, I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you four things, and I want you to rank
Speaker 1: them in terms of like one being the worst, like
Speaker 1: one is the worst, down to four the least bad,
Speaker 1: which is yeah, and you know what you might say
Speaker 1: to me, Craig, They're all equally bad.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: So in terms of things that might impact our cognition,
Speaker 1: the way that our brain works, brain health in the.
Speaker 2: Short, medium and long term. Yes, So number number one
Speaker 2: is for sleep.
Speaker 1: Number two is alcohol and drugs, and of course there
Speaker 1: are lots of variables. Number three is terrible diet and
Speaker 1: number four is consistent stress.
Speaker 2: So sleep, sleep, booze, boos and drugs, sleep one, boos
Speaker 2: and drugs too, diet three and stress and anxiety four.
Speaker 3: All right, So then I really don't need to think
Speaker 3: very much because the answer is simple. So when you
Speaker 3: have you are in a imagine that you are in
Speaker 3: a very uh disasters scenario. You are in the in
Speaker 3: the middle of for example, fire like it fire in
Speaker 3: just in the middle of the fire, or like something
Speaker 3: very dangerous to you, right, So, and there are different
Speaker 3: dangerous around you, and each of them can kill you.
Speaker 3: So you cannot point to one that can kill you
Speaker 3: more because when they kill you, they kill you. Right.
Speaker 3: So the four thing, those four things, they are actually all.
Speaker 4: Of them are dangerous.
Speaker 3: So I cannot say this one is better than the
Speaker 3: other one. What I can say is how each of
Speaker 3: the stronger it can affect our lives. So, but if
Speaker 3: I want to go for everything, and that might be
Speaker 3: a little bit uh stress to the audience, but I go.
Speaker 4: For a stress. A stress is the mother of every
Speaker 4: other bad things.
Speaker 3: I mean by a stress, I mean toxic stress because
Speaker 3: the stress as a as a very normal level is
Speaker 3: actually good for us. It keeps us away from danger,
Speaker 3: it keeps us focus on what we want to do.
Speaker 3: But if it is toxic, it's gonna affect every single
Speaker 3: part in our body and then it will bring us
Speaker 3: to a stage of totally unastable situation. So this is
Speaker 3: the mother of everything. That doesn't mean that alcohol is
Speaker 3: good or smoking is good or different other bad elements
Speaker 3: are good. So for example, talking about the sleeping, you
Speaker 3: need to have a quality time sleeping and you can live.
Speaker 3: We human we can live longer without water, without food
Speaker 3: than without a sleep. So you don't sleep for fourty
Speaker 3: eight hours or three days is in a row and
Speaker 3: the brain is sort of losing its functionality. It gets confused,
Speaker 3: just start hollosing anything around you know, So then then
Speaker 3: the brain actually starts to die. So that meaning that
Speaker 3: you can stay alive for without water for two, three,
Speaker 3: four five days, without food for a week or so,
Speaker 3: but not without the slip. So that how makes it
Speaker 3: important about drugs and alcohol? Definitely they are nothing. They
Speaker 3: don't have anything good for your health and definitely not
Speaker 3: for your brain. Actually alcohol and you say we don't drink,
Speaker 3: I don't drink either, and not because of religious reason,
Speaker 3: not just because of science reason. And the reason is
Speaker 3: because the brain is so sensitive to alcohol. If you
Speaker 3: drink alcohol, after a minute, you can feel the actual
Speaker 3: effect on your brain. This is how fast the brain
Speaker 3: absorb alcohol, right, and then alcohol actually kills the brain
Speaker 3: it cells. So there is one There is one thing
Speaker 3: about red wine which has a component and it is correspiratol,
Speaker 3: and it is good for Alzheimer's situation. However, you can
Speaker 3: get it from other elements. I'm not saying don't drink,
Speaker 3: but I'm saying at a moderate level, not too much.
Speaker 3: Same as drug drug, No, no moderate level. There is
Speaker 3: nothing zero tolerance for a drug because every single amount
Speaker 3: of it could affect your brain in a very bad way.
Speaker 3: So that's the thing. What was that?
Speaker 2: What was the other one?
Speaker 1: So slight alcohol and drugs, poor diet and stress?
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, so diet. Have you heard nothing that they
Speaker 3: say you are what you eat?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's actually sure.
Speaker 3: So if you keep eating something healthy and I'm not
Speaker 3: saying don't eat meat, or I'm not saying don't it
Speaker 3: you know soft because soft is actually.
Speaker 4: Is sodium chloride, which your body actually needs.
Speaker 3: Is a part of the cell components, so you need
Speaker 3: to have everything in moderation. But going for extreme of
Speaker 3: some particular types of food is not actually healthy for
Speaker 3: our body, and that is coming in combination with doing exercise.
Speaker 3: So you barely see any fat animals in the wild nature, right,
Speaker 3: So you see like lions and their feet, so you
Speaker 3: don't see fat. And because they have a balance between
Speaker 3: workout they have to hunt and the balance within what
Speaker 3: they eat, like they input and their output. While in
Speaker 3: human beings we eat more than we burn, more than
Speaker 3: we use as energy, that's what we keep actual relating
Speaker 3: fat is not a good way and in long term definitely.
Speaker 4: Going to affect our brain health, our cardiovascular health.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, we do say fat labradors though, and that's
Speaker 1: because they're aren't by humans exactly exactly, that's because they
Speaker 1: aren't by humans and fed by humans. So so something
Speaker 1: I'm I'm more in the neuropsych than the neuroscience, but
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated with I'm fascinated with the physiological consequences of
Speaker 1: thinking right right, and so like for example, if right now,
Speaker 1: and my listeners have heard something like this before, but
Speaker 1: if right now I have a thought that I'm in
Speaker 1: danger for no reason. But I think I'm in danger,
Speaker 1: but I'm not in danger. But I think I am,
Speaker 1: and I believe I am. Then the emotion is fear,
Speaker 1: and then the physiological response is elevated heart rate, breathing, adrenaline, cortisol,
Speaker 1: sympathetic nervous system, all of those things. So all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, just from a thought that is not true.
Speaker 1: But well, you know, I believe it, but the idea
Speaker 1: is not true. I'm not in any danger. But when
Speaker 1: I believe that I'm in danger while not being in danger,
Speaker 1: my body can't tell the difference, So my body will
Speaker 1: go into a stress response state. Right, And so that
Speaker 1: you know, the mind and the emotions and the physiology
Speaker 1: biology are intertwined. It's one system kind of. I mean
Speaker 1: we isolated in research, but as a as an experience
Speaker 1: of being a human, it's all integrated. Right, Everything affects everything.
Speaker 1: So now here's the thing. If twenty times a day
Speaker 1: I'm telling myself some story, I've excuse my language, fucking
Speaker 1: doom and gloom, right, twenty times a day, then twenty
Speaker 1: times a day, my sympathetic nervous system's going off and
Speaker 1: my endocrine systems go and nuts and I'm doing it
Speaker 1: to myself. Talk to me about that from a neuroscience
Speaker 1: point of view, and just you as somebody who's curious
Speaker 1: about human behavior.
Speaker 3: That's a married good question. I can give to another example.
Speaker 3: That's what I say to my Audia sometimes in the
Speaker 3: like of having the talk, and I asked him to
Speaker 3: imagine that you have a lemon, very sour lemon in
Speaker 3: your hand, and then you cut it, and then you
Speaker 3: start squeezing it into your mouth.
Speaker 4: Is your saliva is running, yes, in your hand. But
Speaker 4: you know what I'm talking to you, I feel actually myself.
Speaker 1: It's like if you say to someone picture yourself scriping
Speaker 1: your fingernils down a blackboard.
Speaker 2: Oh god, God.
Speaker 1: You're not anywhere near a blackboard.
Speaker 3: So you know what is a mechanism behind that. I'm
Speaker 3: sure you know it, but I'm just trying to just
Speaker 3: bring it out a little bit to the details that
Speaker 3: the brain actually doesn't have that ability to separate fact
Speaker 3: from fictions. So whatever happens to brain, whatever you tell
Speaker 3: the brain, whatever we've see the media, the brain accepts
Speaker 3: this as a fact. That is the job of our brain,
Speaker 3: because that's actually there is one evolutionary reason behind it.
Speaker 3: Brain has to do that to basically protect our body
Speaker 3: from danger, it has to believe everything around to them.
Speaker 3: The next step to see, oh this is dangerous, I
Speaker 3: have to just either hide from it or fight them. Right. So,
Speaker 3: based on that the brain, whatever you say to brain,
Speaker 3: the brain accepts this as a fact. So when you
Speaker 3: go to for example, let me start having that negative
Speaker 3: self talk, which we have all of us. I'm sure
Speaker 3: ninety five percent of our self talking is negative. When
Speaker 3: you start talking that negative self talk to yourself since
Speaker 3: the moment that you work up for a morning, the
Speaker 3: brain start having those experiences for real life. The brain
Speaker 3: start thinking that those things that you're saying to yourself
Speaker 3: is going to actually happen to it. That's the brain.
Speaker 3: That's the brain perception from what you say to yourself.
Speaker 3: Same as when you start saying positive things to yourself,
Speaker 3: you suddenly I start feeling happy inside. That's why when
Speaker 3: we see somebody's laughing that gives us a sense of happiness,
Speaker 3: is that that event, whatever it is which is making
Speaker 3: the happiness sense, is not happening to us. We just
Speaker 3: see somebody smiling, We just see a kid or a
Speaker 3: baby is laughing, and that actually brings happiness to us. Right,
Speaker 3: that's because the brain thinks that thing actually happens to us.
Speaker 3: When we see a dramatic movie or something, well, start crying.
Speaker 3: We're not going there is nothing happening to us, but
Speaker 3: the brain start believing that thing. Actually, we can't use
Speaker 3: that ability of our brain to our advantage. We can
Speaker 3: start thinking that. Okay, now that I know that the
Speaker 3: brain is gonna believe it, how about I take it
Speaker 3: to make it right? How about I start talking some
Speaker 3: good things about myself. I am good, I'm strong. I
Speaker 3: can't do it. Even if I cannot do it, I
Speaker 3: cannot do it yet, but I can do it. Sure,
Speaker 3: So start saying something good and believe me, your brain
Speaker 3: is gonna believe it. And at the end of the
Speaker 3: day you will have more achievement than days before. You
Speaker 3: will have more happiness than the days before. And then
Speaker 3: at the same time whenever again again it comes to mindfulness,
Speaker 3: but the self. Next time that the self negative self
Speaker 3: talk comes to you, pause it, pos it And then
Speaker 3: I start thinking, if I keep doing this, my brain
Speaker 3: actually thinks that's happening to me. And that's one every
Speaker 3: thing is actually my beautiful, amazing mom does. I have
Speaker 3: the most beautiful mom in the world that did everything
Speaker 3: for me, and whatever I have is from her, and
Speaker 3: she will. We all have some problems in our life.
Speaker 3: And still when she starts talking to me from time
Speaker 3: to time she says, remember when like that thing happened
Speaker 3: to us? And I feel that when she's talking about
Speaker 3: that kind the story from behind this, I can see
Speaker 3: the sadness in her face and I stop her.
Speaker 4: Mom's up.
Speaker 3: You see, your brain thinks that sad event is going
Speaker 3: to happen to you again. That's why you feel sadness.
Speaker 3: That's why your voice is getting down. So pose it.
Speaker 3: Think of it as this is the behavior that I
Speaker 3: don't want to have. I don't want my belief, my
Speaker 3: brain to believe that this bad thing is going to
Speaker 3: happen to it. So I pose it. As soon as
Speaker 3: you pose it, the brain stopped thinking about this, right
Speaker 3: and then again. So this this is the power of
Speaker 3: our brain. The job of our brain is thinking. You
Speaker 3: cannot stop thinking, but you can't pause on something that
Speaker 3: is not working for you and work on the other thing. So,
Speaker 3: as I said, like ninety five percent of the thoughts
Speaker 3: that we have during that they never going to happen
Speaker 3: to us. So be thinking about what if if I
Speaker 3: go through this and I lose my job, and I
Speaker 3: lose my home and I lose and that ninety five
Speaker 3: person even I can say ninety nine percent never going
Speaker 3: to happen. But it keeps armone and that is natural
Speaker 3: because our brain wants to protect us against the danger.
Speaker 3: But that's actually too much.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I love it. They actually did some
Speaker 1: research on that. How many of the things that we
Speaker 1: ruminate on the negative future potential problems and catashphes and
Speaker 1: it's it was either ninety one or ninety four percent,
Speaker 1: and of the remaining of the remaining percent, they generally
Speaker 1: weren't as bad as we thought, right, you have you
Speaker 1: heard Sherry about And I apologize to my listeners, but
Speaker 1: I love this experiment. There was an experiment done by
Speaker 1: some Canadian researchers around milkshakes. Have you heard of the
Speaker 1: milkshake experiment?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, you'll love this right, So talk about the power
Speaker 1: of the power of thinking and brain. And so they
Speaker 1: had all of these people who were hungry, so they
Speaker 1: hadn't eaten, they were hungry, so they measured their you know,
Speaker 1: grellin the hunger hormone. Yes, right, So they measured their
Speaker 1: grellin levels. It was high, and then they gave them
Speaker 1: over three different sessions. They gave them three different milkshakes,
Speaker 1: and one was a full fat, full sugar, full calorie
Speaker 1: like six or seven hundred calorie milkshake, and then they
Speaker 1: gave them at a second sitting same.
Speaker 2: You know, when they were hungry.
Speaker 1: They gave them a middle of the range three three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty calorie milkshake, and then at another sitting
Speaker 1: they gave them like a low calorie, low fat, no sugar,
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten or twenty calorie milkshake.
Speaker 2: And as you would.
Speaker 1: Expect, after they had the full fat, high calorie milkshake,
Speaker 1: their grelon levels had plummeted, right, Their grelon levels were
Speaker 1: very low, and then when they had the next one
Speaker 1: they were a bit higher because there was not as
Speaker 1: many and then when they had the low fat, low sugar,
Speaker 1: low calorie version, their grelon levels remained relatively high. And
Speaker 1: then they got them all together and they brought them
Speaker 1: in and they debriefed them and they said they told
Speaker 1: them that they gave them the data, the results, and
Speaker 1: everyone's like, well that makes sense. And they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes sense, except you had the same milkshake every time.
Speaker 1: How crazy is that?
Speaker 3: But that is crazy?
Speaker 2: I can I can send you that study. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so they actually.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what produced the different result or the different
Speaker 1: ground level result was not what they were drinking, but
Speaker 1: what they thought they were drinking exactly.
Speaker 2: The brain. The brain is amazing, isn't.
Speaker 3: It is amazing.
Speaker 4: It is amazing.
Speaker 3: I can give you one a more example. And that
Speaker 3: was really amazing that you just said. And you know what,
Speaker 3: like uh, and I think many of athletes, they have
Speaker 3: their professional ones, they may have had this experience that.
Speaker 3: For example, if you see many of those football players
Speaker 3: or psychoplayers when they are in the field and they
Speaker 3: actually eager, they actually actually actually don't feel the pain
Speaker 3: they I mean, you see that that person is running
Speaker 3: all through the game with kind of the broken thumb
Speaker 3: or broken something, you know, and then it actually is
Speaker 3: not just like it's pretending it doesn't feel the pain.
Speaker 3: This is the power of your brain. And the pain
Speaker 3: is there, the damage, the broken bones, but the brain
Speaker 3: actually expends you not to feel the pain because you
Speaker 3: are important for this team to win. So if you
Speaker 3: just get out of the field.
Speaker 4: Your team will lose. So this is the power of brain.
Speaker 3: We we have the most powerful tool in the entire
Speaker 3: universe in our hands.
Speaker 4: It's totally up to us if.
Speaker 3: We want to use it in our advantage or we
Speaker 3: don't use it, or even worse, we use it against
Speaker 3: our advantage.
Speaker 4: So it's totally in our hands.
Speaker 3: And that is that is the most important thing to
Speaker 3: know that we are in control, not you know, not.
Speaker 1: Anything else you know in this is very current, but
Speaker 1: in you're in South Australia, right, yes, yes, okay. So
Speaker 1: there's a guy called Christian Petrarca who plays for Melbourne
Speaker 1: in the AFL. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, so he not
Speaker 1: this weekend, the one before he was playing, he got
Speaker 1: hit really badly. He broke four ribs. He punctured his
Speaker 1: lung and he ruptured his spleen and he kept playing.
Speaker 1: He kept playing, right, I mean, obviously he was in pain,
Speaker 1: but I mean there's no way he should have been
Speaker 1: able to play. You know, even if you have one
Speaker 1: broken rib, it's agony. Yes, so, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's adrenaline or what that is, but all right,
Speaker 1: we've got to wind up. But I want to ask you.
Speaker 1: So we've had we've had a guy on the show
Speaker 1: a couple of times from Harvard University. His name is
Speaker 1: Professor Jeffrey Reddiger, and he is a genius in the
Speaker 1: space of place ebos and spontaneous healing, and you know
Speaker 1: he talks about again in this space.
Speaker 2: Have you heard of him?
Speaker 4: Yes, of course, yes, most of the people who say
Speaker 4: they don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's amazing. So we've had him a
Speaker 1: couple of times. What are your thoughts on placebo like
Speaker 1: the power of the mind to basically create a healing
Speaker 1: effect on the body.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, actually I totally believe it. Plus and that
Speaker 3: is not actually a fiction thing or just the war.
Speaker 3: That actually comes back to the power of reign to basically,
Speaker 3: either in short term or long term, change the way
Speaker 3: that it can act. So I just give you a
Speaker 3: simple example, and I'm not sure that you're not about to,
Speaker 3: but the job of the brain cells are talking to
Speaker 3: each other. They communicate with each other, that's the job.
Speaker 3: That's the simple thing that they do. If they want
Speaker 3: to send a message to a muscle to work or
Speaker 3: my tongue to talk, they just send that civil right.
Speaker 3: So the way that they can do their job better
Speaker 3: and stronger is when they communicate a stronger and by
Speaker 3: that communicating a stronger I mean that they have to
Speaker 3: actually connect more to each other, they have to grow
Speaker 3: more hands.
Speaker 4: To each other and then make it happen. So this
Speaker 4: is the long term.
Speaker 3: Effect that the brain uses to develop a skill, develop
Speaker 3: something else. But that's all of those the long term
Speaker 3: development of a skill. That's sort of in the very
Speaker 3: short term. Like the first step as I can say,
Speaker 3: and that is the thing that you want to change something.
Speaker 3: You think that you need to change something, and then
Speaker 3: after reach into that when you start doing that thing.
Speaker 3: So doing that thing or thinking about changing that thing
Speaker 3: could actually happen to brain in real life or could
Speaker 3: happen to break not in real life, doesn't matter. As
Speaker 3: I said, the brain cannot differentiate with fact and fiction.
Speaker 3: That's why the team in that Canadian said it. The
Speaker 3: brain actually worked the same way because the brain thing
Speaker 3: that change is going to happen. That is the most
Speaker 3: important thing. If the brain thing change is going to happen,
Speaker 3: it will happen to the brain, and the brain makes
Speaker 3: it actually realistic for you. So you think that you
Speaker 3: are going to feel less hungry because of the milkshake.
Speaker 3: So then you will feel less hungry because of the
Speaker 3: milkshake because that change is the trigger for the cells
Speaker 3: to start communicating in different different terr right, So that's
Speaker 3: happening when you have placebo. So next time, if one
Speaker 3: of your family members have not not a serious physical problem,
Speaker 3: just a little bit of headache or something that just
Speaker 3: sometimes give it the ticksack instead of you know, uh, perceptable,
Speaker 3: and the person start feeling better actually because the brain
Speaker 3: actually doesn't think. I said, if it's not a serious problem,
Speaker 3: I'm not going through the medical terms. But the brain
Speaker 3: thinks that that is perceptible. What's the job of personable?
Speaker 3: It makes me feel better to feel less pain. So
Speaker 3: now I'm taking it and it starts actually working on
Speaker 3: the brain in the same area. Right. Your brain start
Speaker 3: to think that, oh, this cell which is happening something
Speaker 3: to it, and then it's started feeling pain for me
Speaker 3: now receiving and actually happening inside the braain is receiving
Speaker 3: the agent, the substance that's gonna help it. So the
Speaker 3: brain starts automatically physically feeling less pain around itself. So
Speaker 3: I don't want to go through the details, but actually
Speaker 3: physically it happens to the brain. It's not just like
Speaker 3: a fiction that it inside the brain. If you go
Speaker 3: inside the brain, you see that those elements which are
Speaker 3: creating pain, they are reducing just by that thought in
Speaker 3: your brain. That's why you feel less actually pain. That's
Speaker 3: why that person in the in the field. The injury
Speaker 3: is there, I'm sure even sometimes the bleeding is there,
Speaker 3: the damage, the tissue is there, but the person doesn't
Speaker 3: feel that much of pain. That's because the brain thinks
Speaker 3: that this is the change that I have to happen.
Speaker 3: I have to come it to happen, and that is
Speaker 3: the winning of the game. And I forgot one. There
Speaker 3: is no injury, there's no breaking bones, there is no no, no,
Speaker 3: no serious damage, and it believes it, you know. So
Speaker 3: I give you one example. Uh, like back to a
Speaker 3: few years ago, I had a few of kids in
Speaker 3: my home, like playing like my families, and one of
Speaker 3: them actually uh started writing dot point like red with
Speaker 3: the red pencil and the other ones hand and the
Speaker 3: other girl thought that it was blood and it was
Speaker 3: not blood, just like the marker and the kid crime
Speaker 3: somehow that it was actually painful.
Speaker 4: And that's the power of brain. You see that thing,
Speaker 4: and do you think that's actually happening? So, as I said,
Speaker 4: each i'n use definitely in our advantage because the brain
Speaker 4: actually believes it whatever you can give it. That's the
Speaker 4: power of media.
Speaker 3: Actually, you think when you see at the news is
Speaker 3: not going to affect your brain, It's going to affect
Speaker 3: you massively. So because whatever you see, you're gonna believe it.
Speaker 3: So again, that plasicle thing sometimes is good because it
Speaker 3: helps you to heal without actual chemical intervention or anything,
Speaker 3: which is good. But I'm not saying that it's going
Speaker 3: to help for in any situation. Depends on the situation,
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, I love how excited you are about your work
Speaker 1: and your I love that.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: Hey, hey, how do people connect with you? Share if
Speaker 1: people want to book you, tell us where to find
Speaker 1: you on social media and website, and how organizations or
Speaker 1: individuals can connect with you.
Speaker 3: Definitely, So I actually, as I said, like I had
Speaker 3: a book on Amazona mindset with some more folks from
Speaker 3: your Plasity to Happiness. Uh if it's online like ebook,
Speaker 3: and also you can order it. But if you want
Speaker 3: me to, I'm more than happy to get involved.
Speaker 4: To workshops, to talks and as you see, I'm very passionate.
Speaker 3: At the end of the session, you will find you
Speaker 3: just have to jump on, you know, doing something, and
Speaker 3: I really like this.
Speaker 2: Is yeah, sorry, sorry, keep going.
Speaker 3: So I really I really like, like I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that you're my students, but I really like to act
Speaker 3: as somebody to motivate my students still to go do it.
Speaker 3: You can do it. And because I saw the results happening.
Speaker 3: So I have a website shrymagic dot com. So and
Speaker 3: also so I am in Flinders University, so we can
Speaker 3: work well. I can go to my Flinders University website.
Speaker 3: I'm linked in.
Speaker 4: Just search for my name Sherry Shoremas.
Speaker 3: And I'm also on Google scholar if you're interested in
Speaker 3: reading my publication, my peer review articles. But the best
Speaker 3: way to book me is to go through that website
Speaker 3: Sherry Maas dot com. And you can go through different
Speaker 3: services that I can offer you in their workshops, in
Speaker 3: their webinars, in their talking and then you can book
Speaker 3: It depends on the events. And yes, yes, I will
Speaker 3: be available to come and talk to you and we
Speaker 3: can go through that journey together. I'm still learning so
Speaker 3: I can learn something from you and you can learn
Speaker 3: something from it.
Speaker 2: Two ways awesome.
Speaker 1: And if all that files, everyone just send us an
Speaker 1: email via the show through the website and we'll put
Speaker 1: you in We'll put you in contact with Sherry. We'll
Speaker 1: say goodbye off but for the moment, Sherry, thanks for
Speaker 1: being on the You project. I really enjoyed it and
Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much Craig for having me.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed your insightful podcast and I hope I
Speaker 3: can come back sometimes again.
Speaker 2: Well, I would love it.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.