Utkarsh Narang (00:01.399) Welcome to another episode of the IgnitedNeurons podcast. This is a podcast where now I've had about three or four people and this is the fourth one, I think, who are PhDs. And Dr. Hayley joins us today from Sydney and she's a PhD in neuroscience. So my hypothesis, as I always do for our listeners, is that today we'll speak about what does the brain look like and understand the brain a little bit better. We will talk about mental health and how does that impact the brain and so on and so forth. And that then there's this something super natural, super normal about our brain that we call the mindset, which is almost like a word that's abused, overused and misused. We speak about that. Would that be a good hypothesis, Hayley? And how are you today? Hayley (00:42.634) Yeah, sounds good. I'm pretty well, thank you. And all of those topics are hugely important to me, mental health, the brain and mindset as well. Because at the end of the day, mindset does come from our brain, like most things. Utkarsh Narang (00:56.737) Absolutely. And then, and we kind of love to have like a super open conversation, but there's this bookend question that we start our conversation with, which is that, just go back to that eight year old Hayley, growing up wherever she was, and you'll give us more background. If that Hayley were to come to you right now, what kind of a conversation would emerge between the two of you? Hayley (01:18.69) Yeah, it's interesting. You almost can't remember who you were back then to some degree. It feels like a long time ago. But when I think about it, I try to think about what, you know, neurodevelopmental stage would I have been in. And when you're eight years old, you know, you have this kind of egocentricism. So it means that we very much see the world from our perspective and everything's about me, me, me as an eight year old. So I'm sure the conversation would have gone a lot like, you know, I want to be this, I want to do that. And when I was eight, I think I wanted to be a belly dancer or a model or something like that, you know, just very weird things. So I think if I was having a conversation now, you became a scientist. that's cool. You know, maybe a little bit surprised about, you know, where my life ended up going, because I think, you know, as a young girl, I was, I remember my uncle calling me an airhead at times. So, you know, just a little airhead, Hayley, just be going around dancing and all of that. So I probably would have been surprised, okay, maybe, you know, I do have what it takes to pursue a career in academia and research and understand, you know, the most complex organ and things like that. So I think I'd probably be taken aback as my little eight year old self who, yeah, I don't know if I would have thought that I'd be capable of it, but you know, here I am so many years later. Utkarsh Narang (02:43.481) That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing. So what I'm hearing you say is that that eight year old, you spoke about things being me, me, me. And I think my hypothesis again is that for some of us that stays throughout our lives as well. And then there is I was talking to someone this last week when we think about me as an individual, we sometimes forget the interactions that we have with the environment and how that shifts us. And so. So it's a very complex relationship that we have with me and with others. But how do you think that relationship for you has evolved over the years from going that eight year old who's me, me, me to wherever you are today? Hayley (03:22.478) Yeah, I think that's, it's a different journey for everybody, but there's a similar underlying kind of neurobiology that at certain stages of your development, so say you start to become a teenager, you start to think a little bit more about the world outside of yourself. It's not everything's about me anymore. It's, oh, you know, these things are happening in the world. And, you know, you start to become a little bit more concerned about the bigger picture things and then... you form those best friendships in those teen years and then onwards you start to think about life partners and things like that. So I think it becomes a little bit more important to prioritize your connections with others, the lady in development you are. So it's not just about yourself. So I think when the frontal parts of our brain starts to develop later in life, so in our teen years and through to our early 20s, that's continuing to develop and that part of the brain is really responsible for, you know, complex thought, regulating our experience. So not just going with our innate instincts, for example, that we do so more often when we're younger. getting to those later stages of development, you are a lot better able to self-regulate and then realize how, you know, what you were saying, your experiences and your behavior impacts on others as well but when we're younger we don't necessarily see that so much it's all about how is this impacting me whereas later and then yeah I guess some people may not based on their experiences may not develop that intuition so well around you know things are impacting others and you know that can be for any number of reasons whether that's their biology or their experiences in life and things like that so Yeah, it can be different for everybody. Utkarsh Narang (05:18.511) Yeah, it's very fascinating what you are sharing because I'm, so I have two boys who are now 14 and 11 and I'm kind of looking at the arc of their growth journey. And what always kind of almost shocks me to a level is that how two kids grown in the same household are so different. So that's one. And then second, I'm thinking how just this development of the prefrontal cortex and how deep of an impact it has on someone's nature and how someone perceives the world. But can you help us go a little deeper on that because our kind of hypothesis was that we'll understand the brain better. What is the prefrontal cortex and then how does it impact one's growth journey or what have you seen? Yeah, for someone who's not a neuroscientist, what would you share with them about the prefrontal cortex? Hayley (06:09.164) Yeah, I think that's so interesting to start off with your insight about, you know, having two boys that are a different age. I have nieces who are twins. So they're the same age, same development, but their genetics are different. So their genetics are more like sisters, but their personalities are so incredibly different. So it does go to show that, you know, our genetics play quite a big role because they have quite a similar upbringing. Obviously, there's different interactions with each of them experiencing the world in a different way. Utkarsh Narang (06:16.911) Hmm. Hayley (06:37.954) But still, overall, they have a very similar environment. So there is a lot of influence that our genetics have on even these personality traits that you can see early on. then, yeah, so coming back to that idea of the prefrontal cortex and how that relates to our, I guess, experience of the world. So it's a very complicated brain region. It has a lot of different roles. So we say it is involved in cognition. Utkarsh Narang (06:42.819) and Hayley (07:07.64) complex reasoning, thinking, problem solving, all of those more complex things. Self-regulation, it does a lot of regulating these deeper brain regions which are a little bit more primitive we might say like our emotional response and our stress response. So the frontal cortex works to assess whether that response and emotion or behavior is appropriate and then regulate it so it can put the brakes on those more primitive systems. So that's what we're learning over time is, you know, what's a socially appropriate response in our, in this context. And that's the frontal cortex doing that. But there were some really interesting studies that you learn in, you know, your first neuroscience classes in undergrad, which is this man who was working on train tracks. I think his name was Phineas Gage and he had a huge metal rod boom straight through his frontal cortex. And the weird thing is he survived and there weren't, everyone was so surprised. was, not really any major differences, but his personality, everyone who knew him was, he's just a different person now. His personality is totally changed. So that's where we started to realize that maybe certain aspects of our personality are actually integrated into that frontal cortex part of our brain. And It's quite a philosophical area and we're still not exactly sure of this is the exact brain region for your personality. But we do think the frontal cortex is involved in those deeper aspects of what makes us us because if it's not there, you can kind of all of a sudden act quite differently. Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (08:52.707) Yeah, it's such a fascinating thing. the impact of the brief frontal cortex and it's such a, it's almost like a tongue twister, the three words together, the impact it has on someone's personality. I'm hearing that. But what I'm also kind of thinking from an audience perspective, Hayley, is that for someone who's just going through life, maybe an executive in a big corporate, Hayley (09:06.016) Yeah Utkarsh Narang (09:22.431) and they have their personality, is like a dual personality, which is like there's something different on on the outside in their personal world. But when they show up for work, there's something some someone different. How do we how does the brain play a role here? Like how do we shift our personalities based on the environment we are in? Hayley (09:40.814) Yeah, I think that's a good question and it really depends on each individual whether they do that or not. And the brain is really context dependent. So a lot of our memories and even things like addictions are driven by our context. So I guess a good example of how prevalent this is, is when someone tries to quit smoking, they can usually be pretty good, even though they're addicted. So there's a lot of brain regions. involved in reward saying do it do it do it you really need to do it and they can usually keep them at bay probably with the frontal cortex trying to rationalize like no it's bad for me all of that but then when you're in a context where you know usually you'd be smoking say a social environment with drinks involved for example then all of a sudden it is almost impossible to control those urges because the brain sees this context and says okay this is what we do in this environment so there's a huge influence of context on how our brain functions. And especially as we develop, start to realize, OK, in this context, I know that these kind of behaviors are appropriate or what gets me the best results and things like that. So the brain's always learning. And especially when we're younger, the brain's highly plastic. So it's just taking in the environment and learning, OK, in this context, this behavior is appropriate. In this context, I can totally just do what I want and that behavior is different. So, you you wouldn't have the same conversation with your best friend as you would with your grandma, for example. So you just learn that over time. And I think the frontal cortex has a bit to do that. Even our visual cortex at the back of the brain, you know, it's constantly assessing, you know, where we are in our physical environment and even things like our performance, there's this. Principle called the context specificity principle. So basically, if you learn something in a particular context, say in a classroom, you're so much better able to recall that memory if you're in the same context. But if you're in a different context, say you're then out in the schoolyard or something, it's harder to remember that because your brain's in a different context. that can be a little trick that you can use, but it also just goes to show that. Hayley (11:59.926) there is a really big influence of where we are based on how we respond. And I think that's very important for our functioning in society. Utkarsh Narang (12:10.639) That's such a powerful insight. So what you're saying is that if someone's trying to quit smoking, then it's easier for their brain and them ultimately to quit smoking if they are not in that context where the urge to smoke gets triggered. And so the brain is context specific, wherein that if you're in a certain environment where you associate a habit to that environment, you end up doing it. Hayley (12:26.443) Exactly. Hayley (12:35.7) Exactly. And you can use that to your benefit as well. So say, you know, you are really, you think so clearly when you're at the beach or going for a walk and you just feel really calm and you go, okay, well, I know that in that context, I'm usually calm. So why don't I just put myself in that context if I need to, you know, regulate my emotions because I'm going through a lot. So you can also use it to your benefit by saying, not just avoiding areas that might be triggers particular habit or, you know, behaviour, but also using a context that can trigger a positive behaviour as well. Utkarsh Narang (13:13.219) Right. So find yourself an environment where you've seen a pattern develop where that environment or that context has supported your growth journey. That's what we are saying. Hayley (13:25.524) Yeah, or you can even just start to create an environment as well. So if you over time decide, okay, well, I think this is important for the work life balance at the moment. I'm just like, it's come to mind. So say you work from home a lot and you're, you know, working in the kitchen area, like in the living room, for example. And then at the end of the day, you want to switch off from work, but you're still in the same context. where you've been doing your work all day, it's a lot harder to switch off. you kind of wanna create some differences in that environment that signal that there's a change of context. So it might be a different light, you might clear away certain things, you might have a certain fragrance on during the day, like a diffuser for a particular fragrance, and then change the fragrance in the evening so your brain goes, we're in a different context now. So now my brain doesn't have to think about work anymore. But if you haven't... you know, change the environment to, I guess, switch it to some degree, then it might be harder for your brain to switch out of work mode and into, you know, relaxing, which is also important. So yeah, you can do little things in your environment to over time create associations because the brain will still pick up on the association. So even if you've always been working at your, you know, dining table all day, every day, and then you just decide, okay, I'm gonna do this new thing where I'm changing the environment in the evenings. I'm gonna use different lighting, different smells. Then over time you will develop that association and it won't take too long to switch out. it's not something like there's always a set environment for every context. You can just create new associations in context. But sometimes you might just have to be a bit more mindful and thoughtful about what changes you're gonna make. Utkarsh Narang (15:18.319) That's so interesting and I'm just putting this what you're sharing to my own life and and I think over the last three or four maybe five years sometimes I forget that it's been five years since COVID came about. Yeah, it's such a such a shock to the system. But what I'm thinking is like I used to get a lot of coaches in those early days, the 2021 and 2022, where people were feeling burnt out and overwhelmed just because their work environment and their home environment had burged together. Hayley (15:30.02) my gosh, I know me too. Utkarsh Narang (15:46.595) and they were unable to dissociate themselves. someone I just, don't know why we really remember this. They shared that, Utkarsh, the drive that I used to get back from the office to the home was my space of shifting my environment, of changing that when I get home, now I'm no more the CEO of the company and I can be the father, the husband, whatever of that place. And just that, because we were working from home so much, that context switching was not happening. That's so strong. Hayley (16:07.95) Mm-hmm. Hayley (16:14.53) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (16:16.367) And I myself also go through coaching conversations with my coach to help me grow. And Hayley, we had a conversation there where I was telling them that I want to create like creative space for myself to think about certain things. But then as soon as this is my home office, I would come here, my brain would be programmed to start to check emails, to start to check LinkedIn for that matter. And the insight that had come through that conversation is that if instead of coming here, Hayley (16:37.974) Yes. Utkarsh Narang (16:44.077) If I were to go to the backyard, if I were to go to the living room, even that might shift things. But then that also makes me question, do we really control our brain or is it only the environment that we are shifting that allows us to influence the brain? What's your understanding of that? Hayley (17:01.682) well, there's, guess changing the environment can influence the brain, but there's other ways that we can regulate our brain and our awareness as well. I guess it's a little bit tricky because a lot of our neural processing is subconscious. So, you know, it's thought that around 90 % of what's happening in our brain is happening below our conscious awareness and control. which can be a little bit scary like, my God, 90 % I'm just completely at the whims of my biology. But you know, there are things that you can do, especially with more training to start to notice what you know, those drivers are from those subconscious brain regions and then start to be more, once you start to be more aware of them, you can start to regain a bit more control. So yeah, I do a lot of sessions. I've got this that I talk about neuroscience in the workplace. So it's like a program and one of those sessions is all about the neuroscience of mindfulness and how we can use that to kind of tap into those subconscious processes and become more aware and be able to regulate it more because it's usually involves being able to direct your attention to a specific area at a specific point in time where you want to be able to then use that attention to I don't know, shift certain habits or behaviors or thoughts and things like that, which yeah, can be done, but it can be quite difficult. So you just have to practice over and over again to try and, you know, bring your awareness, I guess, into your mind. Like what's, where's this thought popping up from? What's my urge right now? These kinds of things. Utkarsh Narang (18:44.207) bring your awareness to these thoughts that are popping up. Let's maybe give that to our listeners today. And there might be someone who would be listening to this 15, 18 minutes in and be like, this does not apply to me. So I might go to the next YouTube video or the next podcast because there's so much content available in the world, right? So if we want them to stay with us for the next, say, 20 minutes daily, and we want to give them something that they can actually put into practice in their environment. So the problem statement that I want us to work on is... You're saying 90 % of what's happening in our brain is below that consciousness. And my assumption is that if we were to tap into that, that might unlock tremendous energies, tremendous action, tremendous awareness for all of us. What do you think is your experience and understanding what happens when someone's able to tap into that 90 %? So I love to have you share on that. And then once you do that, then let's dive into maybe giving them three steps, three actions that they can think through that. But first, if someone were to tap into that 90%, what opens up for them? Hayley (19:48.536) Yeah, I think it's interesting. I think I think about it in a different way. Like, it's not that that 90 % isn't, you know, working for you. I think sometimes it's really important that that 90 % stays subconscious because a lot of it is things that we don't need to be aware of. So parts of our brain is regulating our heart rate, different parts of our physiology as well, like Utkarsh Narang (20:00.431) you Hayley (20:11.746) generating words, like it's all kind of popping up out of somewhere and we don't need to be aware of or in control of all of that. But I think it's important to start to notice when patterns are not like serving us and can be harmful for us and then start to have some more regulation. So it's not about like, you know, being aware of everything that our brain's doing because we'd be totally incapacitated. So, you know, with all of our sensory information coming in, we've got, you know, We can see so much, can hear so much, can smell, taste, feel like everything we're, you know, experiencing is just a little bit that's been filtered into our conscious awareness. So it's really important because otherwise it would be, we would be totally overwhelmed with, you know, move this muscle and this muscle and this muscle just so can move my hand like this, you know, so the brain is doing so much below our awareness, which is really beneficial. So it has, you know, developed over time. ability to filter out a lot of that information and just give us what's important. So that's good but sometimes maybe that filter needs a bit of adjustment so maybe I think a really good example is like anxious thoughts. So this is something that most people experience, most listeners are going to experience at some point or another, some to a worse extent than others and they can be very troubling and sometimes those anxious thoughts are kind of just on repeat and they can be quite difficult to deal with. They can be quite emotionally taxing and draining and distract us from what we're, you know, wanting to get done in the day. So just being able to kind of regulate that can have a big impact. So not letting it just run on autopilot, but rather after time and training of just being able to be aware that that's happening and just, I guess in mindfulness, the technique is to have non-judgmental awareness. And usually after a while, if you're paying close enough attention, the thought kind of just disappears. You know, if you've practiced this mindfulness strategy a lot, or you put in place other strategies like, you know, instead of letting that thought pattern take over your whole conscious awareness, you might decide to direct it elsewhere to your senses. So instead of letting those thoughts, you know, protrude into your conscious state and take over. Hayley (22:37.24) you might think, okay, I wanna pay attention to the sensations in my body. I wanna see what I can feel or taste or see or hear, these kind of things, just to take you out of that. And that's giving you that more regulation and control over that. So I guess it's a bit of a long-winded answer that maybe we don't wanna be tapping into all of that 90 % of what's going on in the brain, because it's not actually helpful. But just being aware of when Utkarsh Narang (23:03.567) Hmm. Hayley (23:06.402) we're letting those subconscious processes take over our whole experience. And because often our stress response is driven by a lot of subconscious processes. So usually it's driven by fear. It's quite an innate response that we have because it's really important for our evolution that we were able to pay attention to stresses. But sometimes, you know, it's not actually based in truth and reality. So being able to then become aware that, okay, this process is happening. I've got all these anxious thoughts. Sometimes you're then able to challenge them. Is this thought based in truth or is it based in fear, for example? Utkarsh Narang (23:47.779) Yeah. Yeah. So what I'm taking away from that is, I'm processing it as I'm speaking with you. So I understand how many functions the brain is performing while we are recording this podcast. And so what you're saying is that we don't even have to tap into the whole 90 % because then that'll be overwhelming for us to see what the brain is doing. Why am I moving my hands like this? Why am I not moving my hands like that? Why am I focusing? And all of these questions start to emerge in my head. But then what you're saying is... Hayley (24:00.107) Yes. Hayley (24:15.191) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (24:17.071) that if we could bring that non-judgmental awareness to our thoughts, and specifically we are speaking about thoughts that are anxious or anxiety-driving thoughts, then that might help us. But what I've seen is, and it helped me understand, and I don't have, I'm not an expert in this field, so I'm going to rely on you, is that when someone's going through anxiety that's beyond, say, a 50 % level for the sake of the conversation, which is... in a certain way, not allowing them to perform at their optimal. And so that high level of anxiety, even when they are able to build the awareness, It's really hard because those thoughts are so overpowering that the awareness does not help. So in those cases, what's your guidance? What should someone who maybe is an anxious flyer or maybe is super anxious with public speaking, what should they be doing to help them build this non-judgmental awareness? Hayley (25:19.628) Yeah, I think that's a good point. So if someone is having like an acute say panic attack or they're in, you know, have anxiety disorders that you know, they'd probably have to talk to a medical professional as well. So GP, maybe a psychiatrist and psychologist to get therapy and medications they can like depending on the individual scenario, those sorts of things can, you know, really make a difference. So sometimes in that state, you know, just being aware of all of your thoughts can be even more overwhelming. So usually the idea would be more to do grounding. So shift your focus away from the thoughts and onto, you know, I was talking about like, you know, physical sensations instead, or, you know, like something in your environment, maybe like an auditory guided meditation, something that takes your mind away from that can help. But I think there's a lot of things that we can do to build our resilience so that those, we can handle stressful scenarios without as much of a full blown, you know, anxious, I guess panic attack or getting into that really acute anxiety state. And you know, this can be different for everybody. So it's important that if you do experience those serious symptoms, you know, it is a medical problem that can be. fixed and it can, you know, there can be a lot of benefit from talking to a medical professional. But there's things that we can also do to lower the probability of that anxiety tipping to that point of extreme. And one of the best ones is just getting a really good amount of sleep. So if our brain is not well slept, it just doesn't function well. And thing that would not have usually stressed us out is just blown into a full blown stressor. So we regulate a lot of our stress response, clean out the brain when we're sleeping and do a lot of important like restorative functions for our brain when we're sleeping. So I would definitely recommend making sure that you know you'd be getting the good amount of sleep each night, especially keeping your, we call it the circadian rhythm. So it's a 24 hour biological clock. Hayley (27:34.05) keeping that on a similar schedule and then allowing that block of, you know, seven to nine hours of sleep each night, just on a regular scale, that's really gonna help with anxiety levels. And the tough thing is if you are anxious, it might be hard to fall asleep. So in that scenario, you'd be having to put in place all different range of strategies that help you relax and get out of that stress state. the body, when it comes to stress and anxiety, is usually in what we call the sympathetic nervous system state. So we'd probably hear that as the fight or flight state. So what we want to do is switch out from the fight or flight to rest and digest, which is called our parasympathetic nervous system. So you're usually in one or the other and you can still be alert and function well when you're in the parasympathetic rest and digest. You're just not like super energized and you know, stressed. So what you want to do is be able to like regulate that switch from stress to rest. So there's a few ways you can do that with breathing. So breathing longer exhales than inhales. It does all of these physical things in the body by regulating our oxygen levels, regulating the pressure on the heart. And because you know, the brain's doing all those things subconsciously, it's always noticing those sorts of things, oxygen levels, pressure, all of this. And because those physical changes it goes okay well now we need to switch into the parasympathetic state to get all of that back into you know the right the right levels and so that's like a little trick that people can use to help switch from that state of stress parasympathetic to the rest so yeah it'd probably take even just five minutes you know longer exhales than inhales to help with the switch and it depends if you're already in a really acute anxiety state. Maybe it doesn't help straight away, but I don't think it's gonna hurt. So there's a lot to unpack there. So things we can do for our resilience and then also just working to get out of that state so we can be in that rest and digest state. Even having a big meal can help too because your body just needs to go into the digest state. So that's why sometimes when people are stressed, they eat a lot because it's like, Hayley (29:56.802) them trying to get into the rest state. Utkarsh Narang (30:02.767) You've given us so many actions and pearls of wisdom. Let me kind of break that down for the listeners, because what you first spoke about was just this idea of getting the right amount of sleep, because that sleep is what you're saying allows the brain to almost like rejuvenate and flush out the chemicals that it does not need and to get into a state of optimization for lack of better words. And then you're speaking next about just this idea of breathing. Hayley (30:20.6) Yes. Utkarsh Narang (30:31.351) And I think something I use to use it a lot in my conversations is that we're respirating throughout the day, but breathing is very different from respiration. so respiration is just the physiological process is happening. But when you're breathing, you're really intentional and mindful of the breath. So I think you shared about that too. And then the third thing that you were sharing was this just this idea of sometimes that stress eating. I was only a couple of days ago experiencing it and sharing it with my wife that I'm eating a lot or eating things that I should not be eating or I don't enjoy eating otherwise, but because I'm stressed for something that is letting it happen. so moving from one state to the rest and the digest state. And then you spoke about the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. And we'll get deeper into that. And just want to kind of also put like a conditions apply here for our listeners. In my past life, I used to be a physiotherapist. And so I've had the joy and the opportunity of understanding the brain slightly in terms of whatever it looked like. I still remember in my first year, we had an anatomy practical and all I did not want, Hayley, in that moment was the supervisor or the examiner to give me the skull to tell her as to how many nerves go from there because that was something that was it was so hard to figure out like what's happening and I would I asked for like the thigh bone, the femur or the tibia, any bone would work, but not the skull. And then she lifted the skull and handed it to me and said, like, Utkarsh, tell us where the nerves go in and out from. And I had no idea. And still, I don't have any idea. But this idea between the sympathetic parasympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. Can you elaborate a little on how it impacts someone's day to day functioning? Hayley (31:58.082) Thank Hayley (32:06.987) Yeah Hayley (32:20.79) Yeah, so basically, you know, we evolved this system so that our body could deal with stresses. And it does come back to evolution because the physiological, the physical response we have to even a psychological stress is very outdated because basically our brain evolved over, you know, millions of years basically to get to what it is today. And evolution is incredibly slow. takes you know, thousands of years for any changes to happen. So we evolved this stress system, but now what's happened is society has kind of evolved exponentially. So you think back a few hundred years ago, you know, it was medieval times and you know, our brain just doesn't evolve at the same time, at the same scale as our society has changed. So most of the stresses that we experience are very much psychological stresses in our day to day. But when we were evolving the stress system, were very much physical stresses. So that's why it's called the fight or flight response because it was when we were say evolving and our threat was a lion that we had to run away from. So you had to take fight or flight I should say so that's to run away. So the body goes through this whole physical response where it prepares you for either running away, fighting or sometimes freezes the response as well. And so it means that we have a lot of changes. So our blood sugar levels will increase, our heart rate will increase, our blood vessels will contract, they'll dilate our pupils. All of these physical changes will still happen even though our stress response doesn't, even though the stress, it doesn't need that. Like, just because someone's asking you to... Utkarsh Narang (34:12.815) Hmm. Hayley (34:16.82) name the cranial nerves, you don't need to have an elevated heart rate but it still happens because that's our evolutionary response. So it's really important that even though we're in that state of sympathetic nervous system fight or flight because we've had a stress, it's important to get back into the parasympathetic state which is when our body does everything else. So it does the rest and digest. So when you're in that stress state, you're not really digesting your food, extracting nutrients. Utkarsh Narang (34:18.639) Mm. Hayley (34:46.03) You know, you need to have that change in your heart rate because it can't always be elevated because that can have long term consequences on your cardiovascular system. So it's really important that you get into that parasympathetic state as well. And that's some of the reasons why people experience such bad burnout after being in that stress state for so long, because their entire body is in a state that's prepared for you know, all of these physical changes, but not that much is actually happening. you know, that long-term changes can come from that. Like, you know, immune system changes, cardiac problems, and all of that from being in chronic stress state for so long. And that's why we feel physically exhausted when we're burnt out because our body's just been working in overdrive really because of this outdated physical response to the stress, which is usually psychological. yeah, so I think that's something important to understand about that system and understand that it is natural as well. So if you are feeling like, my heart rate's increasing or what's happening, that's very natural. You just have to be like, you know what? This is just my evolution. It will subside. It's okay. Because sometimes those physical aspects can then feed into the anxiety even more like, I don't know why, you know, why I'm feeling like this and it can... Utkarsh Narang (35:45.487) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (35:52.888) Hmm. Hayley (36:13.838) it worse but just having that deeper understanding can help you. It's okay, it's just my outdated you know biological systems are at play and that's very normal as well. Utkarsh Narang (36:24.623) So the brain was not ready for it to replace the threat that we had earlier, which was thunderstorms, was tsunamis, which was a lion coming after our life and changing it to an email or a notification on our app or the just the fear of missing out that if I don't watch the content on LinkedIn or YouTube or whatever, what will I miss out? So that's fascinating that the triggers for the brain have shifted. But the brain's response is still primitive is what I'm understanding. Hayley (36:57.742) Yeah, it's this whole thing called the HPA axis that gets activated. yeah, so you've got more adrenaline, more cortisol and all of that. And you don't really need it in that state, but that's still what happens. Utkarsh Narang (37:13.571) With this word, cortisol, I think this has become like a, it's almost become a norm in our family. And so we came to Australia only two years ago. And so the first time that I was driving in the city, I could sense the shift in my breathing. I could sense the shift in my heart rate. My palms are sweating. And I started to say that just because you're driving in the city, my cortisol levels are rising. the first time and for those who are from Australia, they'll understand the first time I took a hook turn in Melbourne, that was such a challenging moment for me because these things started to really put that conversation out. So I think what you're saying is, what you spoke sometime like a few minutes back, which I want to bring back is for our listeners to just blame it on evolution. If you're feeling anxious because of some feedback that's coming your way, some email that your boss has sent you, just blame it on evolution. be aware that this is what's leading to shift in my heart rate, my physical symptoms. It's not a life threat. This too shall pass. That's where we are. Hayley (38:17.558) Yeah. Yeah, I think that can be a helpful, a helpful way of looking at it instead of, you know, letting it continue to feed the fire of the anxiety, just taking a step back and going, this is just a normal response, I guess. Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (38:27.107) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (38:32.75) As we move towards the next phase, and I think we've spoken about just understanding the brain a little bit better. I want to also speak about this idea of the mindset, because what I've been I'm in the learning and development space. So I always have these conversations that you can you can take the horse to the water, but the horse will have to drink the water themselves. Like you cannot really force someone to learn, force someone to change, force someone to to not have anxious thoughts, force someone to quit smoking or alcohol if they have to. So when you cannot force anyone to do anything and even your brain is not fully in your control, you can influence your environment, context switching can happen. We've spoken about all these ideas. My understanding of the mindset is that it's like a switch on switch off button. If I put my heart, mind and soul into it, I can do it. And if not, then I'll not be able to shift it. How have you seen this word mindset play out for you and what's your understanding of it? Hayley (39:32.886) Yeah, I think it's really fascinating. There's so many aspects to mindset as well. It can mean so much, I think from a biological point, I think what we see a lot when we're looking at neuroscience studies is how pervasive someone's mindset and their thoughts can impact their whole body as well. We see that with the placebo effect. everyone's probably heard of it, but you know, we some studies from the lab that I work in, we've done clinical trials to try and look at these medications in treating mental illness like schizophrenia, for example. And you also give people a placebo, is the, it's a say a sugar pill or it's got nothing in it, for example. And you see so much improvement just because people have the mindset that I'm taking something that should help. So it does help. So there's a very, very real influence of our mindset on our, you know, our whole being. So things that we thought were impossible to change, you know, change just with mindset. There's no there's no physical changes in that pill. So it is hard to get those results in science that show, you know, improvement even over just the placebo because the effective mindset is so strong in that case. So I think that's really valuable to know that we can have a lot of power by shifting our mindset. But I think it's something that takes a lot of time to do. You can't just say, I'm going to have a growth mindset today and that's how I'm going to be. But I think it just takes time and effort to be able to cultivate that mindset. But I think I like the idea of growth mindset the most. it's something I talk about in one of my sessions because it really ties in well with this idea of neuroplasticity, which is this brain's ability to change. So growth mindset for those who don't know what it is, and I'm sure I told you know very well what growth mindset is. It's this belief that we can change. Hayley (41:45.996) and we can improve. And if people adopt a growth mindset, just this belief that yes, I can improve, can get better, I can change. They're so much better able to handle challenges, so much better able to perform at work in their hobbies. There's so many incredible benefits from having the growth mindset. And it's like opposite to a fixed mindset, which is really the belief that no matter how hard I try, I'm not going to improve. I can't change. This is who I am. like fixed, this is set in stone. But the beauty is that once you understand a bit more about neuroscience and a bit more about how the brain works is that the brain does usually change and it does adapt to our environment. It adapts to what we've learned. It adapts over time. it's important to know that the brain does have this ability even after we're 25. So you have a lot of neuroplasticity when you're younger. Your brain's just learning everything and changing so rapidly. But it's still happening, you know, till the day we die, we are constantly, you know, learning new things, adapting, you know, forgetting old habits as well. So the more we repeat something, the stronger the connections in our brain become, and the more automatic that becomes. So I call it like giving power to the pathway. So if you use a neural pathway a lot, like say, positive thinking, that's going to get stronger, and that's going to be more automatic. But if you're giving a lot of power to a pathway like negative thinking, know, reacting like with self-deprecating thoughts to most things, then that's going to become quite an automatic strong pathway in the brain because they'll strengthen the connections between those neurons and, you know, it's going to become your automatic thing. to bring it back to growth mindset, it's like once we understand that this is how the brain works, we should kind of all adopt a growth mindset. because it's like a fact of our brain function. It's like you can change and improve. just takes that effort and that time to strengthen those pathways. So I think with any mindset that can be the case. So if you say, you know, I want my mindset to be one of, you know, power, I want to make sure that I, you know, step into the day with, you know, confidence, then that might take a little bit of time to develop those new pathways, especially if you're not used to thinking in that certain way. Hayley (44:10.882) but you definitely can do it over time. Yeah, that's my take. Utkarsh Narang (44:20.591) I think my mic got muted. I'll edit this out. Yeah, no, I love what you're saying because I think what is most important here is and I love the saying, right, that neurons that fire together, wire together. And which is what you're saying, that if you use a neural pathway again and again, that neural pathway gets strengthened. And that's the big insight that we have. And what I'm also appreciative of is just this the difference between the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. And what I'm hearing you say is that it's a gradual process. Hayley (44:23.885) I can hear you. Utkarsh Narang (44:49.817) that you keep being on that path day in and day out to develop that new behavior, that new habit, whatever that might look like. And I think I'm just gonna bring back the context switching or the context that you spoke about earlier, that if you want to build a habit, and I'll give you an example. Like if I wanna build a habit of going for a run, then I'd want to A, build an environment that supports it. I'd want to create maybe just put my shoes next to my bed. So that as soon as I wake up, the shoes are right there for me to wear them and be, be nudged towards building that new behavior. And this idea of neuroplasticity, I think it is a powerhouse. If we understand that the brain is plastic, it shifts based on how we use it. That's super powerful. And this might be, if you have any studies and if not, that's absolutely okay. But do you recall or have you come across any studies where you might have read that someone who say got an amputation, someone who had some other challenge come for them. Does the brain physically really change over time? Hayley (46:00.302) Yeah, I think those kind of studies are really interesting. So for example, people who lose their sight is a good example. So your visual cortex is this huge part at the back of your brain. so people who lose their sight after having it for a long time and you know, they've got this whole visual cortex fully developed over time. Part of that visual cortex is then after they've become blind is then dedicated to hearing. So they other senses then use that, I guess we call it neural real estate to, so it doesn't just sit there and, you know, do nothing. just starts to shift and integrate into other systems and that those brain regions are then used for something else. So the brain's never just like sitting there doing nothing. It's usually adapting to what's important because yeah, it's very like, I guess we'd say it's like really valuable real estate. So nothing's ever just like sitting there. So there used to be these things like you, I guess only use 10 % of your brain and that kind of stuff. But it's like you use all of your brain at some point, otherwise it would be taken over by a different process. Yeah. So the brain is always, always changing and adapting. And there's really interesting things about this, you know, amputation stuff. So people can have what's called a phantom limb. So if they've had an amputation, they're still part of their brain in the beginning that has all of the processes of sensing what's happening in that limb. And then they might actually still feel pain in that arm that doesn't even exist because they're still part of their brain at, you know, at the beginning that is like, well, where's the arm? Like it hurts still that kind of thing. So they'll feel a pain in a hand that they don't have. Very interesting, I guess, insight into how our perceptions aren't always based on reality, but our perceptions are just based on whatever our brain interprets our senses to be. Utkarsh Narang (48:05.793) So fascinating, That the body part that you don't have, you can still feel that pain of the phantom pain or the phantom limb. If someone is listening to this 50 minutes into the conversation and they want to ask you and me, Hayley, that I want to develop a growth mindset. What are a few steps, maybe three steps or one or two, whatever number that comes to mind, what can they start to do that will help them shift to a growth mindset? Hayley (48:37.164) Yeah, I think one of them I would say would be mindfulness because you have to be aware of when that fixed mindset is coming in and not letting it just run on autopilot. So it comes back to that point around awareness. So firstly, first step would be be aware of when, you know, you might have a fixed mindset where you really you should be having a growth mindset. So say there's a challenge arises, you think, I can't do this. This isn't what I usually can do. You notice that and then you're okay, I'm just going to try and you just have to start small and just understand that, you know, the first time you're not going to be amazing at something. No one ever starts off being an expert at anything, but over time, you know, it just gets easier and easier. So just having that in the back of your mind that, you know, I don't need to expect that I'm going to be able to do it straight away, but I'm going to be able to gradually improve because sometimes those expectations a what limits ourselves like, no, I can't do it. It's like, no, you just notice that fixed mindset coming in again and go, I just need to make a tiny improvement. And that's all and then over time, you know, notice your progress. I think that's maybe the third step is just looking back and saying, okay, you know what I have made progress on this and kind of celebrate those wins, because that will, I guess, release a bit of dopamine, which is this neurotransmitter that a lot of people are talking about. associated with reward, but also motivation. So when we kind of celebrate our wins, we get a bit of dopamine and think, okay, well, that's really good. You know, I am doing well. And then it makes you want to do more of it. So then you're more motivated to keep to keep going. So I guess that those three steps would be being aware of when the fixed mindset is coming in, just trying to keep pushing through to improve and not be expecting that things are going to be easy and you you're to be amazing from the get-go and then you know celebrating that progress. Utkarsh Narang (50:31.171) Love it. So awareness. then the step two was that you're not going to be great on day one, but you'll get there. And then third is celebrate the progress, that's going to give you the dopamine hit, which will build this kind of virtuous cycle to help you keep going on the path. Amazing. I love that. love that. As we get towards the end of our conversation, I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I'm sure that our listeners are still tuned in and listening to how we have almost like dissected the brain. Hayley (50:47.65) I think so. Utkarsh Narang (50:59.343) I always wanted to say that. Yeah, there's so much more to get into. But if we're not, and then maybe there'll be a part two, who knows. But if we were to now end with our final question, which is that if the Hayley from a few decades from now, the 80 year old Hayley were to come back to you right now, and she has like one piece of advice that Hayley over the next few decades, this is what you must be doing. Hayley (50:59.36) I thought there's so much more to get into. Hayley (51:07.874) Yeah Utkarsh Narang (51:28.911) What advice would she have for you? Hayley (51:31.374) That's so hard, isn't it, to see into the future? But it almost feels like I'd be closer to my 80-year-old self than my eight-year-old self. It doesn't feel like there's going to be that much change, but it's so much further away than even my eight-year-old self. But I think because of that neurodevelopment, I've gotten to my adult stage now that maybe it will be just reminding me about those important things like Utkarsh Narang (51:48.43) Yeah. Hayley (52:00.824) how important social connection is for our wellbeing because sometimes we can forget to prioritise that but that's, know, the evidence is there for, you know, just making sure you prioritise those social connections. I think that's something that as we get older, we appreciate more and, you know, we probably wish we'd set those foundations up earlier. So I think that would probably be something if I was 80 now, I'd probably be telling myself it's so hard to know. Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (52:29.593) to prioritize those social connections. And I think you're absolutely right because it's a fascinating journey from eight to 80. And that's why we put in these two questions because the eight year old from wanting to become a belly dancer or a model to now being a neuroscientist to what that eight year old self will hold for you. I think it's fascinating to see how our life evolves over these years. Hayley (52:44.481) Yeah Utkarsh Narang (52:57.391) Now I want to kind of summarize what you've spoken about today, which is that awareness, I think, is a superpower. And if we can work on it, if we can develop it, if we can trust our mindset to to repeat this this habit of building awareness again and again so that the neuron pathways get stronger and stronger, that I think is a starting point to many beautiful things that all of us can achieve. For those who want to connect with Hayley, all the links will be in the show notes. Hayley (53:20.878) Absolutely, yeah. Utkarsh Narang (53:25.647) and we have to appease to the algorithm gods. So share this episode. If you're listening on a podcast platform, then do comment, like and rate the Ignite Neurons podcast. Before we bid goodbyes for just now, any final thoughts around the brain or anything about the experience. Hayley (53:44.696) No, I just wanted to say thanks for having me on here and sharing all of this important information. Our mindsets can shape so much of where we go and I think it's an important thing to start thinking about and yeah, great to chat today. Utkarsh Narang (54:03.599) Absolutely, and the mindset is in our control. So to the listeners, you can do the best that you can by building the mindset that you choose to and want to. This is Hayley and Utkarsh signing off. Hayley (54:16.59) Thank you.