Dr Tara Swart20 October 2022

Change Your Brain: The Power Of Neuroplasticity And Braincare - Dr Tara Swart

5Frameworks

15Insights

Frameworks in this episode

Self-Mastery6 steps

Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 1

Myth Buster1:55:30

Isn't vision board success just confirmation bias?

Ali puts the sceptic's case directly: ten years of boards at twenty items each is two hundred items, so some will land by chance and you remember only the hits, like the friend you were thinking about who rang. Swart concedes confirmation bias is real and doesn't deny it, but argues the ratio of her own board items that came true, allowing that some took longer and some haven't happened yet, is well beyond random. Her fallback position is pragmatic rather than evidential: knowing what you want, putting your mind to it and taking steps towards it does make things more likely, and being open to it costs you nothing.

“so there is such a thing as confirmation bias which is obviously that when something gets proven right that we we take that as evidence…”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:56:00

“if I look at the ratio of the things that I put on my board that have come true some of them have taken longer…”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:56:30

Hot Take· 2

Hot Take39:30

The nine-month rebirth theory for rewiring your brain

Swart shares a theory she says she hadn't aired before: since attention-intense changes like emotional intelligence, intuition and creativity take six to twelve months anyway, focusing deliberately for exactly nine months, the gestation period from fertilisation to a newborn, amounts to a rebirth in the brain via rewired neural pathways. She contrasts this with simpler behavioural changes such as starting the gym three times a week or trying intermittent fasting, which take only two to three weeks to stop feeling difficult.

“if you really focus on doing this in a nine month period which is the gestation period of a baby”
Dr Tara Swart · 39:30

“newborn baby being born you can essentially create a rebirth in your brain by rewiring your neural Pathways”
Dr Tara Swart · 40:00

Hot Take1:07:30

Doctors are the most sceptical about supplements and the worst at self-care

Ali raises the standard medical scepticism, that most people fall within the normal range so supplements are a scam, and undercuts it with a clinical parallel: nobody doubts that saline transforms a confused, dehydrated elderly patient, yet doctors themselves were often more dehydrated than their patients. Swart agrees and adds that most people are not in the normal range for vitamin D, especially those with darker skin, and that despite eating organic, home-grown and cooked from scratch, she is naturally vitamin D deficient and cannot correct it with food. Her rule is to know yourself, supplement strategically, trial it, and drop it if nothing changes.

“most people are not in the normal range for vitamin D for example especially us with like darker skin”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:08:30

“most people are not eating in that way and I do try to eat in that way as much as possible and but naturally I'm…”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:09:30

Explainer· 4

Explainer27:30

Anthocyanins, aerobic exercise and the restart bonus for neurogenesis

Dark-skinned foods carry anthocyanins, powerful antioxidants that contribute to neurogenesis, the hardest of the three brain-growth mechanisms in adults, in which embryonic nerve cells grow into neurons and connect up. Aerobic exercise does the same job. Swart cites cell turnover of around thirteen to fourteen percent from regular aerobic exercise, rising to as much as thirty percent when someone who has been off exercise for a while starts again, which she calls the perfect excuse for every time she falls off her schedule and restarts.

“there are substance is called anthocyanins that are really powerful antioxidants and they contribute to something called neurogenesis”
Dr Tara Swart · 28:00

“if you have haven't been doing exercise for some time and you start again it can actually be up to 30”
Dr Tara Swart · 28:30

Explainer44:30

Heart rate variability, and what sympathetic versus parasympathetic actually means

A decade before rings and watches, Swart used chest-sensor HRV monitors worn for three days and nights, producing colour-coded data: turquoise for parasympathetic rest and digest, red for sympathetic stress, light or dark blue for moderate or high intensity exercise. The device compares heart rate with heart rate variability, so an elevated heart rate reads as exercise rather than psychological stress. She resists calling sympathetic simply bad, since the fright-flight-fight response exists so you can escape a threat, and prefers to describe parasympathetic as rest and recharge rather than rest and digest.

“it's like turquoise when your um your body's in the parasympathetic state which is like Reston Digest um and it's red when you're in the…”
Dr Tara Swart · 45:00

“we say these words without ever really thinking of them but it's fright flight fight and a fright is a threat”
Dr Tara Swart · 46:00

Explainer1:03:30

Magnesium: depleted by stress, best absorbed through the skin

Magnesium underlies mechanisms from sleep and mood to neuromuscular junctions, joints and skin, and is very easily depleted by stress. Swart cites statistics that seventy percent of people are stressed enough to be magnesium deficient, and argues you cannot eat enough leafy greens, nuts and seeds to replenish it. Powder, capsule or tablet is fine, but she says transdermal absorption is best and cites a study finding it equivalent to intravenous administration. She bathes in magnesium flakes daily, two handfuls, three if she has been showering instead. Her personal marker of deficiency is a twitchy eyelid, plus musculoskeletal twitches, poorer sleep, and a shorter fuse.

“the stats show that 70 of us are sufficiently stressed to be magnesium deficient you cannot eat enough leafy greens and nuts and seeds to…”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:04:30

“studies show that taking magnesium transdermally through the skin”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:05:00

Explainer1:14:30

The gut-brain axis is now agreed to be bidirectional

Both hosts note the gut-brain axis got roughly one mention across six years of medical school. Swart says recent research has changed the picture: the connection is now agreed to run both ways, not just gut microbiome influencing mental state, and it operates through a much wider network of nerves than previously known, plus cytokine messaging in the blood and hormones. The same foundations govern microbiome health, sleep, nutrition, hydration and exercise, and jet lag hits your gut bacteria too, which is why you need the loo and feel hungry at the wrong times. CBT and mindfulness also act directly on gut bacteria.

“the gut brain connection is now agreed to be bi-directional”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:15:00

“when you um are jet lagged your gut bacteria get jet lag too that's why you go to the Loo at the wrong time of…”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:16:00

Story· 3

Story06:30

Why she left psychiatry after seven years in the NHS

Swart spent two years deliberating before quitting medicine in 2007. Lifestyle wasn't the driver, she liked the on-calls, but she concluded that another thirty or forty years in the role wouldn't give her enough intellectual stimulation, and that in NHS psychiatry her impact was very high on one very vulnerable person but went no further. Executive coaching, she reasoned, would let her reach senior people who influence teams, companies and society. She'd worked through around a hundred alternative options first, because after nine years at medical school it's hard to believe you can do anything else.

“if I remained in that job for the next 30 or 40 years I wasn't going to get enough intellectual stimulation or challenge to keep…”
Dr Tara Swart · 08:00

“he said to me this is such a great loss to us because you could do this job in your sleep and I think that…”
Dr Tara Swart · 09:00

Story17:00

Burning the boats: refusing to do a single locum shift

Asked whether she kept a financial safety net, Swart says the decision to leave medicine was so emotive that she had to burn her boats: no locum work, ever. There were periods when she couldn't pay her bills and people told her a single weekend shift would cover six months of rent, and she still refused. She qualifies it heavily, noting most people starting a business sensibly keep a side job, that she had a supportive husband covering her during the course, and that she started saving as soon as she knew she was quitting. They divorced during that period.

“I think the decision to leave medicine was so emotive for me that I had to burn my boats I was like there's no way…”
Dr Tara Swart · 17:00

Story1:25:30

A neuroscientist reconciling herself with the law of attraction

Swart says she found it very difficult to accept anything not evidence-based, and started researching her book partly to convince herself there was an evidence base for the laws of attraction. She spent a summer finding there wasn't even agreement on what they are, whittled them to the ten or twelve most commonly cited, and then, sceptical of the quantum and vibration explanations, tried to explain them through cognitive science instead. Most mapped over surprisingly easily; for the one or two that didn't, her position is that it won't harm you, so do it or don't. As a senior lecturer at MIT it felt risky to be open about yoga and meditation, but 38 international translations later she treats that as vindication.

“it was very difficult for me to accept something that wasn't evidence-based and I partly started the research from my book to to convince myself…”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:26:00

“it was surprisingly easy to explain most of the laws of attraction through cognitive science”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:26:30

Q&A· 2

Q&A1:17:00

How do you know whether your gut health is good?

Ali asks whether gut health is judged by your stool. Swart's practical answer: regularity is individual, anywhere from a few times a day to a few times a week, so the signal that matters most is change from your own baseline, in stool and urine alike. Colour should broadly reflect what you ate, and she warns against panicking about blood after eating beetroot. Too hard is constipation, too runny is diarrhoea, anything between is fine, with blood and mucus as genuine flags. A food diary mapped against bowel movements and mood is useful, but the actual microbiome composition requires sending a sample to a lab.

“don't have a heart attack that you've got blood in your stool if you ate beetroot the night before”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:18:30

“if you really want to know about your actual gut microbiome you do have to send a sample off”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:19:00

Q&A1:30:00

Is listening to audiobooks at 3.5x on your morning walk bad for you?

Ali describes his canal walk with an audiobook at 3.5x speed and asks whether he's missing something by never walking mindfully, noting he doesn't feel more stressed either way. Swart doesn't tell him to stop. She reads him as alert, engaged, in his happy place and at a life stage where absorbing everything makes sense, while noting she caps herself at three interviews a day because the third starts merging. Her actual claim is narrow and cortisol-based: there is something good about spending some time where you're not always doing, and she predicts that will change as he gets older.

“but part of me is like yeah but what if I did what if I took the airpods out what if I just kind of…”
Ali Abdaal · 1:31:00

“there is something good in terms of cortisol levels and um about spending some time where you're not always doing”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:32:30

Tool· 1

Tool1:19:30

Probiotics, prebiotic foods, and the gut yes and no lists

Swart refuses a one-size-fits-all rule but says a good probiotic taken for six to twelve weeks is unlikely to harm and likely to help, particularly with heavy travel, recent antibiotics, stress or processed food; she has taken one daily since the start of the pandemic. Probiotics replenish good bacteria and prebiotic foods, onion, garlic, asparagus, artichoke, feed them. Her yes list is plant-based and hydrating foods, antioxidants, good fats, and fermented foods, sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, kombucha, roughly daily. The no list: processed food, smoked food, too much alcohol, antibiotics. She also flags genetic heritage as a factor in tolerating things like coconut oil.

“the Prebiotic foods like onion garlic asparagus artichoke they actually feed the bacteria that are then multiplying in in your gut”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:21:00

“the real no-nos are processed food smoked food um too much alcohol antibiotics”
Dr Tara Swart · 1:23:30

Takeaway· 2

Takeaway47:00

Executives live in sympathetic all day and peak in stress at home

Swart's HRV data on senior clients showed them in sympathetic state all day and sometimes even at night. She contrasts this with a study in which a nurse delivering cancer news to patients and families all day registered as being in flow, because it was her purpose. The pattern that surprised her, and that she then saw repeatedly, was that these executives were moderately stressed at work where they had a degree of control, but always more stressed when they got home and had to see their children.

“the kind of people that I work with they're in sympathetic all day really yeah and sometimes even at night”
Dr Tara Swart · 47:00

“but they'd always be more stressed when they got home and they had to see their kids so that was interesting”
Dr Tara Swart · 48:00

Takeaway50:30

Sleep is the single most important foundation for resilience

Before answering a question about easy stress-reduction tactics, Swart insists on restating sleep. She notes that phrases like getting by on four or five hours, or sleeping when you're dead, are still in circulation, and counters that getting enough sleep is probably the single most important foundation for recouping resilience during the day. She describes herself as obsessed with sleep, to the point that sleep disruption on call would have been a dealbreaker in her medical career.

“getting enough sleep is probably the single most important foundation to being able to recoup your resilience”
Dr Tara Swart · 50:30

Frameworks in this episode

Journaling as Cortisol Download and Pattern Audit

The Action Board (Vision Boarding with Value Tagging)

The Grass-Path Method for Rewiring Behaviour

The Nervous System Reset Routine

The Three Levels of Brain-Care Nutrition